Final Fantasy X3: A new story
by Flametongue
Summary: DISCONTINUED A lack of spheres leads Rikku to accept a job at the Machine faction, and of course, Gippal is there to annoy her. Suddenly they stumble upon a mystery concerning some strange pieces of machina. What will happen?
1. Rikkus story

**Rikku POV**

Hi! Rikku here! Surprised huh? I've decided to make a record of my story; yeah that's right, MY story, not Tidus story, or Yunas story, MY story!

The story begins at the third year anniversary of the eternal calm, meaning, it's been three years since we defeated Sin! But first, I'm gonna fill you in a little on what's happened so far.

Tidus is back (yay!) but you all knew that already didn't you? But what you DON'T know is that just a couple of months ago, Yuna and Tidus got married! It was SO cool! They got married at the beach of Besaid, and then there was this big party up in the village!

Oh, and Wakka was the Best man, and Lulu was the Maid of honor, the maid dresses were so pretty! At least that's my opinion, Paine didn't like it at all, guess white isn't her color. I have to admit, I cried! It was so romantic, and I always cry at weddings!

I didn't really pay attention to what Baralai said (he was the priest) until the three finishing sentences;

"If there is any man here, who think that these two persons should not be wed, may he speak now, or forever hold his peace."

When of course no one said a thing, he continued;

"I now pronounce you husband, and wife. You may kiss the bride."

They kissed and they seemed SO happy! After that, it was time for the party. Everybody was dancing, and guess what! Paine was dancing too! With Baralai! I was dancing on my own, I felt kind of lonely, and then that jerk Gippal came and started teasing me about my maid dress. It's not my fault! Yuna was the one who chose it! And why am I explaining myself about this!? Sigh…anyway, Shinras Commsphere network has been installed all around Spira, everyone's using it! He was so happy when the Machine faction said they'd sponsor it, or more like; cocky.

Pops have 'kind of' rebuilt Home, but since he didn't really have too much gil and workers to do it…well let's just say it's not like it used to be. Most of us were pretty down after pops blew up Home, but since we Al-bhed never dwell on the past we almost forgot about it when the calm came. Pops got pretty angry when Rin said he wouldn't help funding the whole project, but he actually DID have a point; the Al-bhed didn't need Home anymore, they were all accepted by the rest of Spira now. Anyway, pops didn't rebuild Home as a fortress like before, now it's just a small town with machina houses, he's pretty happy about the place though, since travelers and adventurers pay to get some place to sleep for a couple of days, other than that it's just pops and some of the workers who helped build it that lives there. Well, that's about it, I'll tell you if I remember anything else, so I'll just go ahead and tell you my story!

**Normal POV**

It was evening, but the sun was still out. The Celsius leapt through the air in the direction of Besaid Island.

"Come on!" Rikku cried out to Brother. "Can't this piece of junk go any faster!?"

"Kut Tysh ed (God damn it) Rikku, we're at top speed!" Brother said through clenched teeth.

"Aaaaw, but we gotta hurry!" Rikku whined.

"Besaid will still be there," Buddy said in a bored tone, "it's not like it's gonna disappear."

"But I wanna see Yunie!" Rikku kept on. "I haven't seen her or the others since the wedding!"

"We'll be there in a couple of minutes…" Buddy sighed.

The Gullwings had been a little re-molded since the defeat of Vegnagun. Since Yuna was now married, she was no longer a part of the group, Shinra had ended up joining the Kinderguardians, and Paine had joined up with Nooj and Baralai to help them in the political struggles, apparently she had a house in Bevelle. The Youth league and New Yevon had joined forces and formed what they now called the "League of Spira", it was a republican government, with delegates from all regions and races, one from the Guado, one from the Ronso, one from Besaid, one from Killika and so forth. There wasn't any delegate for the Al-bhed, since the whole race now lived among everyone else.

The Gullwings also had some new recruits, the new engineer, Linna; she was nearly as brilliant as Shinra, not to mention the same kind of proud ego about her inventions. She looked kind of like Nhadala, she wore the same kind of clothes, but she was a bit more tanned and she didn't wear goggles. Barkeep had brought his girlfriend, Darling along (Rikku nearly passed out when she saw two Hypellos)

Then there was Vact, a guy almost as old as Rikku, he mostly took care of the cargo, and helped out when he was needed, he usually didn't talk much, probably because he was kind of shy. He was wearing a pair of sacky pants, boots and a white tank-top, he had blond hair, he wasn't Al-bhed though.

The Celsius descended at the shore of Besaid. Rikku yelled to the others as she ran out to the elevator,

"You guys wait here and I'll be back in a sec!"

"No need to rush." Buddy said through the com-device, since Rikku was already outside the ship. She ran up the beach and strode along the route to the village.

The natures of Besaid were just as beautiful as always, the beach, the waterfalls, the rivers and the trees. For Rikku, it all was like seeing a couple of old friends. Rikku was no longer wearing 'practically nothing', she had replaced the skirt with a pair of blue jeans with ripped ends, she had a couple of bag pockets attached at her belt, like the ones she used to have on her skirt. She had decided to cover her bikini with a tight orange top; she also skipped those rosette sleeves she used to cover her arms with. Other than that, she looked pretty much as always, same boots, same hair, same bandana, same scarf, and of course, her old go get 'em attitude.

As she got to the village gates she looked around and sighed, then she ran straight to the hut she knew belonged to Yuna and Tidus. She quietly peeked inside, there they were, lying in bed, cuddling. They had changed their looks quite a bit. Yuna was wearing a blue skirt that reached down to her ankles, it was held up with a black leather-belt, she also had a small blue top to go with the skirt. She hadn't given up on her boots though. Tidus had made a rather rapid change with his clothes; he was wearing a pair of big shorts that ended just a little bit under his knees, he also wore a red shirt with a tank-top under it, Rikku was glad to see that he had gotten rid if those (according to her) crazy shoes and totally weird arm-gadgets, he still wore that cool necklace though. Rikku giggled and jumped inside the hut screaming,

"Surprise lovebirds!"

Yuna and Tidus flung out of bed, totally taken aback. At first they looked terrified, but then they smiled at eachother, grabbed a pillow each and looked at Rikku.

Rikkus eyes widened and she said "Uhm…so you guys had a good honeymoon?" She tried to smile. The next second Rikku was thrown out of the hut by two extremely heavy pillows, Yuna came right after them and jumped at Rikku and started to tickle her.

"No! Yunie! Hahah! Please! Stop!" She squealed, laughing like mad.

"Serves you right.." Tidus said laughing as he came out of the hut, "for ruining our quality time!"

"What do you mean 'quality time'?" Yuna said and threw a pillow at him.

"Uh..well..I uh.." Tidus said. Rikku got to her feet and started hitting Tidus with the other pillow singing "Tidus is a perv! Tidus is a perv!"

"Hey! Whoa!" Tidus yelled holding up his arms to repel the pillow.

"So, you just came here to say hi and play with pillows?" Yuna asked Rikku as she got to her feet.

"Oh, no! Not just to say hi!" Rikku said throwing the pillow in Tidus face and turning to Yuna. "I came to pick you guys up!" She smiled the widest smile she could manage.

Yuna looked at her with a puzzled expression on her face.

"Uhm, pick us up?" Tidus said after a few seconds.

"Uh-huh, for the party!" Rikku smiled if possible even wider.

Yuna and Tidus looked at eachother, then at Rikku.

"P-party?" Yuna said a little nervous.

"Yeah? You didn't forgot, did you?" Rikku said.

"Well, guess you can't blame us since you never told us." Tidus said with a weak smile.

Rikkus eyes widened. "Whaaat!? But Wakka was supposed to tell you!"

At that moment, someone snuck up behind Tidus and Yuna and grabbed their necks.

"Well, I thought it was better to wait until the last second or they'd run away on us, yah?" Wakka said in his rough Besaid-accent.

"Ow! Let go Wakka!" Tidus yelled.

"Yeah! Let go!" Yuna whined.

"Sorry Yuna," Said Lulu who had just appeared from behind Wakka, "but we promised Rikku we wouldn't let you miss another party."

Wakka let go of the struggling couple.

Wakka and Lulu, still the same, they hadn't changed at all.

"Look, we have a reason for not wanting to go, okay?" Tidus said rubbing his neck.

"Yeah, every time we go out in public people are tugging at our arms and ripping at our clothes." Yuna said sadly.

After the Youth league and New Yevon joined forces, the people of Spira had once again seen Yuna as their shining star, since it was mostly thanks to her and Lennes song that they all stopped their struggle (and Gippals speech at the Luca stadium didn't exactly hold the peoples feelings for Yuna down) and Tidus was soon to become about as famous as Yuna. One could still hear people talking about it, the high summoner, Lady Yuna, married to a Blitzball player from Zanarkand. Not to mention all his crazy fans at the blitz tournaments.

"Oooh, don't worry Yunie!" Rikku said cheery. "The place will be so PACKED that no one will notice you guys!"

"Yeah but.." Tidus still hesitated, "the entry's probably sold out already anyway so-"

"Oh, don't you worry about that!" Rikku interrupted and pulled out a bunch of pink cards with a strange heart on them that Yuna resembled as LeBlancs' logo.

"LeBlanc and her 'Noojie-woojie' gave me these; they REALLY wanted you guys to come!"

Rikku looked at Yuna with her puppy-dog-eyes. Yuna narrowed her eyes and said,

"What's the REAL reason you want to go to the party so badly?"

"What to you mean?" Rikku said.

"Well," Yuna looked at Rikku with a serious expression on her face, "if I remember correct, a certain 'Machine faction-leader' usually appears at those parties!"

Rikku blushed. It hadn't actually occurred to her that Gippal was bound to come to big parties like this one.

"Aaah, that Gippal-guy Rikku was dating?" Tidus said with a wry smile.

Rikkus eyes widened and she quickly gave Tidus a kick at his leg yelling,

"I am NOT dating him! Okay? He's just an annoying jerk that's following me around!"

"Then why are you blushing?" Lulu asked with a smile.

"I'm not!" Rikku said, trying to hide her face.

**Rikku POV**

Don't ask me how I got myself out of that situation! I don't understand why they were bugging me about Gippal, I just wanted Yunie and Tidus to go out and have fun with all of us for once! But, for some reason, Yunie didn't really like Gippal, so I guess the thought of me being with him was a little disturbing. Ahem…anyway, we managed to drag Yunie and Tidus down to the Celsius and then we were of!

**Normal POV**

Every year, there was a big party at the Luca stadium, and a parade in Bevelle to celebrate the Calm. Nooj and LeBlanc were responsible for the party, and Baralai did his best to manage the parade in Bevelle, he always had a lot of support though, from people like Issaru and others. Paine didn't really have a decided post with any of them; she usually went where she felt comfortable.

It was right after dusk and the sun had set. Tidus and Yuna were in the cabin, getting ready.

"Tell me again why we're doing this." Yuna said while putting on some make-up.

"Because you can't say no, and Rikkus puppy-dog-eyes are enough to make a Malboro cry."

Tidus said in a bored tone, taking a sip at one of Barkeeps best drinks.

"Yeah, but she DOES have a point." Yuna said.

"Hmn?"

"Well, we haven't been away from Besaid for months," Yuna said turning to Tidus, "we should try to have fun tonight!" She smiled slightly.

Tidus looked at her and smiled. "Whatever you say."

The Celsius landed at the docks in Luca, and as the hatch went down and everybody was heading out they saw a familiar face.

"Paine!" Rikku cried out and ran up to her, arms outstretched.

"No hugs." Paine said and held her and out in front of her, Rikku stopped right in front of it, she let her arms fall to her hips.

"Aaaaaw, bummer…" She said.

"So you guys ready to party?" Paine said turning Yuna and Tidus.

"You bet!" Yuna smiled.

"Heeey! I thought you guys were totally of the idea!" Rikku said laughing slightly. "How come you changed your mind?"

Yuna just smiled, then she and the others strode of to the entrance.

Rikku stamped at the ground.

"Why does everybody have to be so dull!?" She yelled and ran after them. As she rounded the corner to the stairs up to the entrance she ran into someone and fell backwards, but the person grabbed her arm before she fell down the stairs.

"Th-thanks, that was kinda close!" She said without looking up.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Cids' little girl, falling on her butt as usual." The person said.

Rikku looked up in alarm to see Gippal standing there with his usual grin. She jerked her arm out of his grip and punched him in the chest whining, "I have a name!"

Gippal just laughed, he had barely felt her punch.

"Shouldn't you be tucked in bed by now?" Gippal said with a grin.

"And shouldn't YOU be back in Djose, building totally useless machines that no one wants?"

Gippal eye widened.

"And miss a party like this?" He said with a falsely disbelieving voice.

It was common to see Rikku and Gippal teasing eachother like this; it was something they had been doing since they were kids. Gippal was usually the one starting it all, and he was also the one with the advantage.

"Couldn't you wait until I was drunk so I could ignore you?" Rikku whined.

"A gentleman never lets a woman wait!" Gippal said and bowed. "But since you're just a little girl," he stretched up, "I guess I should have waited until you got your feeding bottle!" He laughed.

"Ooooow why, you!" Rikku bellowed.

"Haha! Now if you excuse me, I'm gonna go ahead and spend some time with people old enough to drink." Gippal said and ran up the stairs and inside the stadium.

Rikku was pouring with rage; she just stood there talking to herself.

"Dryd...dryd...SAYHEA! (That...that…MEANIE!)" She spat. She stamped on the ground and ran up the stairs after him.

You could hear the music miles away from the stadium. And as Rikku entered it, she was totally taken aback by the sight; she hadn't been able to show up at the two earlier parties, she had been too busy. The first year she had been busy traveling around Spira, teaching people about machina, and the second year, well…Yuna promptly wanted to get married at that exact date. But then again, here she was now; standing in the entrance staring at something that looked like a giant club. The benches had been removed, and tables and couches had been placed all around the place. In the center of the stadium were the pool used to be, a giant dance floor had been place, people were dancing their freaks of up there, and a fence had been place around all of it so that nobody would fall out. You could also see a bar her and there, the bartenders blending drinks to anyone who didn't look too young.

Rikku immediately shined up, "Forget about Gippal!" She thought. "Time to party!"

Pure techno was rumbling trough the air; lights of thousands of colors were illuminating the whole stadium. People were drinking, dancing, laughing and celebrating. Rikku was swinging her tiny body along the dance floor. She was swinging her hips back and forth with her arms above her head. She kept on dancing for what seemed like hours, and there were a couple of guys hitting on her, but she turned them all down with a snide comment. When the DJ stopped the music to change to another song, she strode of to the nearest bar and ordered a drink, a STRONG drink. She removed the little umbrella decorating the drink and almost downed the whole glass; she sipped at the rest of the liquor in it.

"So, I see you found your feeding bottle!" A voice said from behind her.

She turned around and found herself once again staring straight into Gippals face.

"Go to hell Gippal!" She said, downing her drink, ordering a new one.

"Whoa, heh, I know we've known eachother for a long time, but don't you think it's a little early for you to bring me home to your place?" Gippal said and took a seat next her, ordering a beer.

"You're just as arrogant as you were back when we were kids…" Rikku said, downing her second glass.

"Speaking of which," Gippal said, taking a sip of his beer, "remember when we stole all that beer, from the kitchen, back at Home?"

Rikku sniggered, she remembered. About four years ago, when Rikku was fourteen and Gippal fifteen, the two of them had been watching the men at their parties, how fun they seemed to have thanks to the booze. While Gippal was distracting the chefs, Rikku snuck inside the storage-fridge and managed to get her sticky fingers on a barrel of beer. They hid in a storage down in the basement and had a contest about who was the bigger drinker.

"I totally drank you under the table!" Rikku laughed.

Gippal eyes widened. "Well, you must have been REALLY drunk, because YOU were the one being drunk under the table." He said.

Rikkus mouth opened wide, then she said, "I don't think so, since it was YOU who were the one who passed out after two hours-"

"During which, you spent most of the time vomiting all over the floor." Gippal interrupted.

"I did NOT throw up!" Rikku said irritably.

"Then how do you explain that there were chewed Cruespice fruits all over the floor?" Gippal said and downed the rest of his beer. "You're the only one I know that actually EAT that stuff!"

Rikku blushed, but then she said "Hey! I could run you out anytime!"

"Then how about now?" Gippal said and shrugged his shoulder.

"I don't wanna waste any gil at YOU!" Rikku said and glared at him.

Gippal laughed and said "We both know that you got enough cash to have some fun," he suddenly narrowed his eyes and looked suspiciously at her "or maybe, you're afraid?"

Rikku glared at him.

"Let's make it fair." Gippal said. "Hey Jarred! Give me a double of what she had, and another beer!"

The bartender came over with a beer, and then he took a large glass and poured up the same kind of liquid that Rikku had been drinking. Gippal handed Rikku the beer and then he downed the whole glass of his own drink. Rikku looked at him then downed the beer in three swipes.

"Okay, now we're equal," Gippal said, then he turned to the bartender called Jarred and said, "So Jarred, you know anything about the game called 'Table-turner'?"

Jarred grinned and pulled up a brick full of shot glasses, and a bottle with some yellow-greenish liquid that Rikku recognized as cacti-liquor.

"A shot contest, huh?" Rikku smiled.

"You know how it goes?" Gippal asked.

Rikku grinned, took a shot, downed it, turned it upside down, and slammed it on the table.

"First one to fall of the chair pays for all of it." She said.

Gippal grinned his infamous cocky grin, took a shot, and the game was on.

After about twenty shots (yeah, that's right, twenty) they were both really drunk, but they both kept at it, since none of them wanted to lose to the other. Rikku thought she should start a conversation to keep her mind of the fact that she was shit-laced.

"So what you been up to?" She asked while she continued to down shots. "Haven't seen you for a while."

Gippal just shrugged his shoulders and took another shot.

"It's been kinda busy lately," he said, "machina is shipped to Djose every day, we've been making a lot of money, and a lot of money means a lot of work, and a lot of work means…" He became silent; it looked like he was thinking hard.

"I don't know what it means!" He said with a laugh. Rikku started laughing too and it resulted in her spilling a shot in her lap.

"Oh, shit!" She said but continued to laugh.

"Phew, I'm gonna go and get some fresh air!" Gippal said still laughing.

"You running away?" Rikku said with an evil grin. "That means you lose big guy!"

Gippal turned around with his unsteady legs.

"Well, it's kinda hard to keep going since the bottles empty." He said.

"Huh?" Rikku looked at the bottle of cacti-liquor, it really WAS empty.

"Oh, hey Jarred!" Gippal yelled to the bartender and threw a bag of gil at the counter. "Keep the change." He turned around again and started walking towards the exit.

"Hey!" Rikku shouted and stumbled after him. "You're not getting away that easy!"

"Oh?" Gippal said and turned around to face her.

"You can't just leave me here!" Rikku pouted.

"And why is that?" Gippal asked.

"Because," Rikku said, "Paine left a while ago to go to the parade in Bevelle, Lulu and Wakka are stuck up at the dancefloor, and Tidus and Yuna are making out at the balcony behind us!" She jerked her thumb up at a balcony connected to the floor above them.

Gippal gave the balcony a quick glance before speaking to Rikku.

"Speaking of Yuna," he said, "I ran into her before."

"Yeah?" Rikku asked.

"Yeah," Gippal continued, "she said something about chopping my balls of if I so much as touched you."

"Are you gonna touch me?" Rikku asked suspiciously.

"No," Gippal said, "but she might get the wrong idea about us leaving here together."

"I told you," Rikku said and laughed, "she's busy making out with Tidus!"

Gippal smiled and said "Are you sure about that?" He nodded at the balcony on which Yuna and Tidus were standing. Rikku turned around quickly, she saw that Yuna had been watching them but turned away as soon as she saw that Rikku noticed.

"Why does she always have to be so suspicious about me!?" Rikku said irritably turning back to Gippal, but then she got an idea.

"I got an idea!" She said and smiled.

"What?" Gippal said in a bored tone.

Rikku grabbed an empty bottle and swung it at Gippal who ducked and almost fell to the floor because of his grogginess.

"Wh-what was that for!?" He asked in a surprised tone.

"Play along and run for the exit!" Rikku said.

"Huh?" Gippal narrowed his one eye, Rikku swung the bottle at him again but missed.

"Pretend I'm angry at you!" She said through clenched teeth.

Gippal started to understand and dodged yet another swing of the bottle and ran towards the exit.

Yuna and Tidus were watching how Rikku drunkenly chased Gippal out of the stadium.

Yuna sighed; Tidus looked at her and said.

"Look, as far as I can see, they're only teasing eachother, and you really shouldn't interfere in Rikkus love life."

"I know," Yuna said, "but, I just don't like the thought of my little cousin going out with someone who looks like a pirate."

"She's eighteen!" Tidus laughed. "She can decide for herself, besides Yuna, you're not her mother!"

"I know that!" Yuna said angrily. "But I still don't want her to go out with an arrogant player who thinks that machina is the only thing that makes life worth living!"

Tidus laughed and hugged Yuna, then he said "Look, she can take care of herself, and to me, it looks like she's not really interested in this guy."

Yuna looked over at the exit and said "I hope you're right."

"Whoa! Knock it of Rikku! We're outside already!" Gippal shouted as Rikku kept hitting him with the bottle.

"Oh, yeah! Hehe, cunno, (sorry)" Rikku said and laughed, almost tripping on her unsteady legs, "I just got carried away!"

"Nice excuse!" Gippal said and took the bottle from her.

They were in the docks now, Gippal tumbled over to a crate and sat down.

"Rumo luf, E's naymmo fycdat! (Holy cow, I'm really wasted!)" Rikku laughed while spinning around looking up in the sky.

Gippal laughed at what he saw and pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. As he lighted it Rikku stopped spinning and looked at him.

"Oh, I'm just soooo drunk I- Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing!?"

Gippal looked at her and said "What?"

"What do you mean 'what'?" Rikku asked as she stalked over to him and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and threw it away.

"Don't smoke when I'm around! It's disgusting!" She said waving a finger in front of his face. Gippal just looked at her, then he chuckled and said,

"Whatever, Cid's girl…"

Oooooh I have a name!" Rikku shouted while stamping the ground. "And it's Rikku!

R-i-k-k-u! Rikku!"

Gippal just kept chuckling. "Whatever, shorty." He stood up and messed up Rikkus hair.

"Heeeeey!" She waved her hands wildly to shake him of.

"Can't be easy being short as a Tonberry." Gippal said and backed away from her.

"I'm – Not – Short!" Rikku yelled poking him in the chest.

Gippal grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to the ground and started tickling her. She laughed madly.

"No! Hahahaha! Gippal! Hihihihhaha! Stop! Kyyaaah! Please!"

After a couple of minutes they stopped struggling and just lay flat on their backs at the pier, gazing at the stars.

"So what have you been up to?" Gippal said after a while. "Aren't too many spheres around anymore huh?"

"Tell me about it!" Rikku said restlessly. "We've been scanning Spira for months now without finding so much as piece of glass!"

Gippal chuckled.

"So," he said, "I guess you're unemployed now then?"

"Yup." Rikku sighed. "Gil's been kinda hard to come by."

"Hmn…" Gippal nodded. "You want a job?"

Rikku bounced up and looked at him.

"You serious!?" She asked gleefully.

"Sure," Gippal said and sat up, "We could use an extra hand, I'll have a room prepared for you first thing tomorrow morning."

"Yes! Thanks a lot Gippy!" Rikku said and hugged him.

"Gippy?" Gippal said.

"Yeah?" Rikku said. "You always call ME freaky names!"

"And 'Gippy' was the best you could come up with?" Gippal said in disbelief.

"Okay, then how about Gippy-whippy? Hmn?" Rikku said. "Or Gipster? No wait! Just Gip!" She motioned her hand through the air as if showing him a vision.

"How about," Gippal said, "The-most-handsome-machine-faction-leader-that-is-giving-you-a-job-and-just-as-easily-can-take-it-away-from-you?"

"Nah, I think Gip is much better!" Rikku said.

"Whatever…" Gippal said and shuffled her hair. "Cid's girl!"

**Rikku POV**

Yup, there you have it; the beginning of my story! We went back to the party, danced, and passed out. Yunie and the others brought me back to the Celsius and tucked me in, and I guess Gippal went back to the machine faction, Yunie said a couple of Al-bhed took care of him.

Anyway, I told everybody that Gippal had given me a job, I was actually really surprised that I remembered it. Well, some were happy for me, like Buddy, Tidus and Vact, but others like Yunie and Brother, well…

**Normal POV**

"What!?" Yuna threw at Rikku when she told them she was going to work at the Machine faction. "You're gonna work for that-that arrogant-"

"Easy Yuna! Easy!" Tidus tried to calm her. "It's not like she's going out with him like you thought."

Rikkus eyes widened.

"You thought I was going out with him!?" She said in disbelief.

They were all at the bridge of the Celsius, Lulu and Wakka had decided to take a boat cruise back to Besaid, and Rikku had just told Brother that he was going to have to make an extra landing at Djose temple, when both HE and Yuna freaked out.

"I am not going to waste my valuable time on driving all the way to Djose!" Brother shouted.

"You won't have to," Buddy said. "We still have the autopilot you know."

"Dryd ec hud fryd E sayhd! (That is not what I meant!)" Brother said through clenched teeth.

"I am not going to let my little sister work for a backstabber like Gippal!"

"That player is just trying to twist you around his finger!" Yuna said fiercely.

"Hey, you think I would let him do that?" Hmn?" Rikku said.

The others became silent, Rikku laughed.

"Come on guys! I'll be fine! And I really need the money!"

"As if we could stop you…" Linna said from her seat.

"Okay, I'm gonna go pack, alright?" Rikku said and ran up to the elevator.

"I'll turn on the autopilot." Buddy said and got over to his seat.

"I still think this is a bad idea!" Yuna said when Rikku disappeared into the elevator.

"Relax, she'll be fine!" Tidus said.

Yuna punched his shoulder lightly.

"You're supposed to be on my side!" She said angrily.

**Djose temple**

Gippal woke up with a killer hangover. He twisted in bed and checked the time.

"12.33!?" He thought. "Shit, that was some party!"

He had given everybody the day off, since they were all bound to be totally drained from the festivities last night.

"Guess I'll just go back to sleep…" Gippal thought and pulled the cover over his head. He had fallen asleep in his clothes and he had absolutely no idea of how he had gotten back to Djose, and there was something in the back of his head, there was something he was supposed to remember.

"Shit, I hate memory loss!" He said aloud. "I know I've forgotten something, I just can't figure out what!"

He lay there for about half an hour trying to figure it out. "What was it?" He thought, he couldn't remember anything, but something told him that the moment he remembered, he would regret it. And with that he fell asleep again. But suddenly, the door flew up, and someone yelled;

"Come on Gip! Wakey-wakey! Time to get up!" Rikku dropped her briefcase onto the floor and started jumping at Gippals bed.

"Now I remember…" Gippal moaned under his breath.

"Come on Gippal! I wanna see my room!" Rikku whined and pulled of the covers and threw them at the floor.

"You're evil…" Gippal said.

"Get up you lazy bum!" Rikku yelled gleefully and took his pillow and started hitting him with it.

"Ow! Okay I'm up! I'm up!" Gippal yelled and rolled of the bed. "Ooooh…" He moaned from the floor.

"How can you sleep when you know I'm coming?" Rikku pouted.

"To tell the truth," Gippal said. "I had completely forgotten you were coming."

Rikku just looked at him with wide eyes.

"Okay, that does it," She said with her hands on her hips. "No more booze for you!"

"Hey, how the hell can you be so awake?" Gippal asked. "Unless my memory is totally fucked up I happen to remember that you drank almost all the liquor in Luca last night."

"I've got an up and awake personality!" Rikku said with a smile.

"Whatever…" Gippal got to his feet. "I'm gonna go take a shower." He walked over to the door leading into a bathroom.

"What? Wait!" Rikku shouted. "You haven't showed me my room yet!"

Gippal stopped and looked at his feet sighing.

"Alright, follow me…" He said turning to her with a grin. "…Cid's girl."

"Meanie!" Rikku pouted.

Gippal dragged Rikku through corridors and halls she didn't even know existed, they had obviously made a couple of changes with the structure. Gippal opened a door to reveal an almost empty room.

"Hope you like it." He said.

The room was not too small, and not really big, there was a bed in the corner, in the middle of the room there was a table with two chairs, in the far end of the room next to the bed there was a desk with a commsphere on top of it, at the other side next to the desk there was a door leading to a wardrobe, and just like Gippals room this one had a private bathroom.

"Oh wow!" Rikku screamed. "I get my own bathroom!"

Gippal chuckled. "Since we rebuilt the place and added a couple of rooms," He said, "every worker who lives here get to have their own bathroom."

Rikku ran across the room to look inside the empty wardrobe.

"Now if you excuse me," Gippal said turning to leave, "I'm gonna go have a refreshing shower."

"Sure!" Rikku said with a smile and started unpacking.

Gippal sure took his sweet time in the shower. He wouldn't have to do too much work today, since everybody else was taking the day of. He spent about forty minutes in the shower before he was done. He grabbed a towel and went to put on some clothes. But when he was halfway through the room to grab the clothes that lay by his bedside, the door swung open and Rikku barged in.

"For the love of sand Gippal! Put some clothes on will ya!?" She shouted when she saw him standing there in nothing but a towel.

"Sure," He said. "But uh…could you please turn around first?" He grinned slightly.

Rikku turned around quickly. Gippal grinned wider and started to put his clothes on.

"So, what are we gonna do today?" Rikku asked when Gippal had put on his pants.

"What do you mean?" Gippal asked, pulling on his shirt.

"Well, I'm here to work right?" Rikku said turning back to look at him.

"I've given everybody the day off," Gippal said putting on his heavy combat boots. "Thought they might need some sleep from the party last night."

"Then what am I suppose to do?" Rikku said and stomp the ground. "I'm bored!"

"I don't know," Gippal said, making sure the belts and gadget on his collar were tight enough. "Decorate your room or something!"

"I already have!" Rikku said.

"Well," Said Gippal while snatching up his mortar. "If you want something to do that bad, why don't you come with me and hunt some fiends down the beach?" He flung the mortar over his shoulder.

"Fiend hunting?" Rikku asked.

"Yup," Gippal said. "They keep flocking at the beach every day, better beat them back or they reach the temple." He took his gun and made sure it was loaded, and then he asked, "So, you're still using dresspheres?"

"No," Rikku said. "All the garment grids suddenly broke down, Linna didn't know how to fix them and we couldn't ask Shinra since he joined the Kinderguardians."

"So it's just you and your daggers?" Gippal asked and holstered his gun.

"Well, Linna modified them a little," Rikku smiled slightly, "and I got a whole bunch of surprises in my pockets."

"Surprises huh?" Gippal said, he knew all about Rikkus little mania for grenades and items like that, the kind that hurt. "Okay then, let's go!"

"Right!" Rikku said jumping into the air.

As they strode down the Djose highroad, Gippal explained that there had been a strange kind of fiend activity along the highroad lately.

"The fiends are multiplying day by day." He said. "Mostly Sallets, we've been able to keep them at bay though, but I thought it might be best to check things out and get to the source of it."

"Were do they come from?" Rikku asked. "The sea?"

"Sallets in the sea?" Gippal said disbelieving. "Nope, they seem to be coming from a cave, and that's the cave we're about to investigate, I tried to send some of my men to check it out but they're all worked up about it, some guy named Narroj went in to take a look, came running out screaming about ghosts!" Gippal shook his head. "I don't know why they all believe him though, that Narroj has always been kinda sick."

Rikku just looked at him with scared eyes.

"Did you say ghosts?" She said.

"Oh, come on!" Gippal said rolling his eyes. "Don't tell me that you believe it to!?"

"Well we've both been to the Den of woe!" Rikku said this very fast. "And it might be some kind of unsent!"

"I know about that stuff, okay?" Gippal said. "It's just the fact that it came from Narroj, that's all, it's probably just a Haunt or something, you know that skeleton fiend with horns and no legs?"

"Please don't talk about those!" Rikku pleaded and shivered.

"Hehehe, Cid's little girl's got the chills!" Gippal smirked.

Rikku turned to him and kicked his leg.

"I'm NOT scared!"

"Ow! Ayco! (Easy!)" Gippal said jumping on one leg.

As they reached the old machina that were used during Operation Mi'hen, Rikku saw something that made her eyes go wide like apples; hundreds of Sallets, sticking up and looking like a bunch of rocks at the beach. It looked like they were searching for something, they kept looking out the sea and around the beach, as if they were trying to catch the sent of something.

"What are they doing?" Rikku asked Gippal, the two of them had hidden behind a rock and were now peeking over the edge trying to figure out what the Sallets were doing.

"I don't know," Gippal said and stood up. "But I'm not gonna ask them!" And with that, he lifted his mortar and fired a round of grenades at the flock.

Sallets flew back and forth, blasted into the air, and those who had been the centre of the impact were blown into pieces.

"You got any useful 'surprises'?" Gippal asked crouching and looking at Rikku.

"You bet!" Rikku said and took out an ice gem.

"Distract them while I reload!" Gippal said, shoving some grenades into the pipes of the grenade launcher side of the mortar.

Rikku stood up and threw the ice gem at the panicking fiends. But it proved to be a HUGE mistake, the moment the gem hit one of the Sallets the others saw the attacker and rampaged towards her.

"Shit!" Rikku hissed and threw a grenade at them. "Gippal! Hurry up will ya!"

Gippal stood up and pointed his gun at the attacking fiends and fired a shot. The bullet scattered and the pieces flew in every direction at the Sallets. Some were killed instantly, but there were still many of them moving towards Rikku and Gippal.

"Screw this!" Gippal said holstering his gun and starting the grinder on his mortar.

"Hey, check this out!" Rikku yelled and pressed a button on one of her daggers, the blade started spinning around the handle just like Gippals grinder.

Gippal grinned. "Quite the modification!" He said.

Rikku smiled and did the same with the other dagger. The two of them jumped of the highroad and onto the beach, they sliced the scales of the fiends as if they were water melons.

They kept on for what seemed to be an hour before all the fiends were dead.

"So I guess Cid's little girl still got it!" Gippal grinned and shouldered his Mortar.

"So where's this cave anyway?" Rikku asked ignoring Gippals comment.

"Right over there!" Gippal said, pointing at a cave right next to the wracked machina, the entrance was about twice as tall as Gippal.

"Huh? I've never seen it before." Rikku said looking over at it.

"That's cause it's new." Gippal said walking over to the entrance of the cave. "Well, you coming or what?" He asked turning to look at Rikku.

"Uhm," Rikku hesitated. "Are you sure about this?"

Gippal snorted and walked into the cave.

"Hey wait!" Rikku yelled and ran after him. "Shouldn't we atleast go get some help?" She said hopefully as she walked up next to him.

"Don't you think I'd have brought them here already if I was gonna need their help?" Gippal asked in a bored tone.

"Oooh, poopie!" Rikku said, while stamping the ground.

Suddenly they heard a noise; it was kind of like a groan and a rumble from a very deep voice.

"What was that!?" Rikku shivered and looked around wildly.

"I think it was Narroj's ghost." Gippal said in his casual voice.

The cave was big, a lot bigger than the entrance; it was like a big hall, but it was dark.

"Let's spread some light over this shall we?" Gippal said and shoved some kind of grenade into one of the pipes of his mortar, and then he shot it up towards the ceiling. The grenade exploded into glowing pieces that attached to the walls and ceiling. Now the whole chamber was in light and they could see the source of the noise; it looked like a giant slimy egg, it had a black-greenish colour, and was attached to the wall with some kind of yellow slime. There was some kind of opening at the top of it, sliding out something that looked like unconscious crouching Sallets.

"Well, I guess that's the source of all the Sallets." Gippal said and reloaded his mortar with normal rounds. "Let's clean up!" And then he launched the grenades at the egg and the Sallets who seemed to be waking up. There was a great rumble at the impact, rocks were falling from the ceiling and Rikku and Gippal had to take cover outside the cave to avoid getting squashed.

"Smart plan!" Rikku yelled angrily while brushing some dirt out of her hair.

"Hey, I got a hangover, okay!?" Gippal said irritably. "And a sulky Al-bhed with a hangover and a mortar is a dangerous Al-bhed with a hangover!" And then he went back inside the cave to check things out.

"Frydajan... (Whatever)" Rikku said and followed him.

Well inside, they saw that all the Sallets were dead, but the egg was trembling dangerously. Suddenly, it splashed open, and out of it crawled a really hideous fiend. It looked like a Drake, but it was bigger, and it was slimy. It had no visible eyes, the spine looked like it was about to explode due to the fact that it was so big, and the skin was so outstretched that you could see every single rib along its slimy body. It had the same color as the egg, except for the spine that was sickenly yellow. It crawled of what was rest of the egg and growled as it saw Gippal and Rikku.

"Now we're talking!" Gippal said excitedly and quickly reloaded his mortar.

"I've never seen a fiend like that one!" Rikku said and shivered.

"Well, we won't see more of it after I'm done!" Gippal said and fired a round at the fiend, but it was too quick, it dodged every grenade as it leapt at Rikku and Gippal.

Gippal drew his pistol and fired his shattering bull's-eye bullet, it hit but the fiend didn't stop.

"Why don't you start those spinning daggers of yours, uh?" Gippal said and started his grinder.

"I can't!" Rikku said as she jumped out of the path of the furious lizard. "I blew all the power at the Sallets, they have to recharge!" The fiend tried to whip her with its tail but missed.

"Dammit!" Gippal shouted and slashed the fiend. "It's wet, try something with lightning!"

Rikku did as she was told and threw a lightning gem at the lizard; it proved to be pretty effective. The fiend leapt back into the middle of the cave and turned its ugly face at Rikku and Gippal, it looked like it was taking a deep breath. Rikku saw what was coming and threw some sort of glowing napkin in front of her and Gippal; it was a lunar curtain. The blue flames that were blown from the beasts lungs were gradually blocked, but Rikku and Gippal could still feel the heat.

"Shit!" Rikku groaned.

"You okay?" Gippal asked as the flames disappeared, his eyes locked onto the fiend.

"Yeah, I'm okay…" Rikku said, though her voice was weak.

"To hell with this!" Gippal said and took out some king of grenade with two sprinters, he pulled out one of them, and suddenly some kind of propeller blades flashed out around it.

"Dodge this!" Gippal threw the weird grenade and it leapt automatically at the fiend who tried to dodge it but failed. The grenade attached itself at the side of the fiends' neck, and suddenly the second sprinter flew out. The beast exploded in a cascade of black body fluids.

Gippal sniggered and walked into the centre of the cave to check what was left of the corpse. Rikku was exhausted from all the fighting, she reached for a potion, but she noticed she hadn't packed any.

"Damn…" She said under her breath.

Gippal bent down and checked what seemed to be the fiends' yellow spine, and it seemed to be almost okay, except for the ends who were supposed to be connected to the tail and the skull.

"This is weird," He said. "This thing seems to be-"He paused and looked at Rikku. "Rikku, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Rikku said. "I'm just-"And then she passed out from exhaustion.

"Rikku!" Gippal yelled and ran over to her.

**A/N:** Sooo, this is my first real fanfic so, please review...and be nice okay? If I get enough reviews then I'll put up the next chapter soon...


	2. Painful memories of the past

**(A/N)** Great, I've already come up with a second chapter, so read, review, and enjoy....

**Normal POV**

Rikku woke up in her room back in Djose temple. She twisted in bed and saw that a bedside table had been placed next to her bed, it was full of empty potion-bottles, and then she noticed that her sheets were wet from some sort of blue liquid. Apparently someone had been trying to force a whole lot of potions inside her mouth, but considering the fact that her sheets were wet they couldn't have succeeded too well. Rikku sat up and checked the time; it showed 23.04.

"Gee, I've been asleep for a long time." She said to herself, and then she could hear her stomach rumble. "Ooow, hungry…" She said.

She got up and felt the cold floor under her feet, she scanned the room after her shoes; they were lying in the corner next to the door. She quickly pulled them on her feet and left the room.

The corridors were deserted since everybody was off today. Rikku thought she would take a stroll down to the mess hall, but then she suddenly remembered, she didn't even know where the mess hall was, Gippal had never told her.

"Gippal." She thought, and then she walked straight to his room. She knocked at the door, and when nobody answered she stalked inside; no Gippal.

"Where is everybody?" Rikku thought. But then she saw a man coming down from the stairs of the Cloister of trials.

"Aqlica sa! (Excuse me!)" She asked the man. "Tu oui ghuf frana Gippal ec? (Do you know where Gippal is?)"

"Cina, (Sure,)" The man said and nodded. "Zict ku cdnyekrd yriyt, (Just go straight ahead,)" He pointed at the door to the Cloister, "yht dyga dra amajydun du dra puddus vmuun, ra cruimt pa drana. (and take he elevator down to the bottom floor, he should be there.)"

"Dryhg oui! (Thank you!)" Rikku said and ran up the stairs.

As she got inside the Cloister, she noticed a couple of new doors. The Machine faction apparently had made quite the renovation during the last couple of months. Rikku stood at the elevator, but nothing happened.

"Come on, go down! I need to get to the bottom floor!" She thought. And suddenly the elevator moved, as if listening to her thoughts. The elevator stopped at the bottom floor and Rikku found herself looking around in a circular room full of machina parts and tools, suddenly she heard someone speak;

"E dumt oui pavuna; ev ed'c hud ypied Cid's kenm, drah tuh'd pudran sa! (I told you before; if it's not about Cid's girl, then don't bother me!)"

Rikku turned around; Gippal was sitting at a metal desk fiddling with something.

Rikku grinned and sneaked over to him, and then she put her hands over his eyes/eye and yelled; "Kiacc fru! (Guess who!)"

"Fuck dammit!" Gippal yelled wincing. "You scared the shit out of me!"

Rikku laughed and asked "So what you up to?"

"I'm examining this thing." Gippal said and held up what he had been fiddling with; the yellow spine from the lizard-fiend.

"Eew! Rikku whined backing away from it. "What for? It's just a piece of spine!"

Gippal laughed at her reaction and said "It's something weird about this thing, look."

Rikku came a little closer and looked at it. There were some kind strange wires going on and around inside the yellow mass, but the yellow stuff seemed to be some kind of cover, and the actual spine seemed to be…

"Mechanical?" Rikku said disbelieving.

"Seems like it," Gippal said. "I've never seen this kind of technology before, its like it was developed to replace certain body parts, but since the fiend was born with it…I don't really understand it."

"Replace body parts? Kinda like Noojs' leg and arm?"

"No, this stuff is far more advanced." Gippal said shaking his head.

"But, how come that fiend had a mechanical spine? No fiend in Spira is mechanical, right?" Rikku said.

"My guess is that the egg got to that cave during the storm last month, and the cave was opened by the strong waves, but that doesn't explain the anatomy of the fiend." Gippal said scanning the spine with a strange instrument.

"Well, you can think about that stuff later," Rikku said impatiently. "I'm hungry, and you haven't shown me the kitchen or the cafeteria yet!" She whined.

Gippal just looked at her.

"You DO have a cafeteria here, right?" Rikku asked anxiously

Gippal looked at her, and then he burst out in laughter.

"Stop laughing!" Rikku yelled angrily. "I'm just really hungry that's all!"

"Cid's little girl," Gippal said still laughing, "you're still the same! Thin as a match although you eat like an Ochu!"

"I do NOT eat like an Ochu!" Rikku protested.

"Whatever!" Gippal laughed out and stood up. "Come on, I'll show you were we eat."

"About time!" Rikku pouted.

And with that the two of them took the lift back up a couple of floors. The elevator stopped in another circular room, although it was much smaller, and empty, except for two double doors.

Gippal went over to the doors and opened them.

"After you." He said and shoved Rikku inside.

"Hey, easy!" Rikku protested but she became silent as soon as she saw the mess hall.

The whole room was like a copy of one of the mess halls at the Al-bhed Home. The walls had been covered in metal, and they had been painted with the same light colors that were highly cherished by the Al-bhed. The roof was low, and covered in wooden planks made from Sanubian oasis tree, and there were lamps hanging every here and there. In the middle of the hall, there were three long tables with benches, and around them there were a whole lot of smaller circular and square-shaped tables with chairs, and in the far end of the room; there was a snack bar, with fruit, candy, sandwiches and (Rikku was thunderstruck at the sight) every single kind of spice-fruits you could find on Bikanel island.

"You know," Gippal said when he saw Rikkus awestruck face. "I went to check out the new Home your old man built, and I got really down when I saw he hadn't even thought of rebuilding any of the old mess halls, so I thought 'ah what the hell, I'll do it myself!"

Rikku hardly listened; she ran into the middle of the hall and looked around, smiling.

"This is great!" Rikku said and ran to check the wall-paintings. "How did you get them to look so much like the ones at Home? Those patterns were so…so…unique!"

"Yeah, well," Gippal said, scratching the back of his head. "I went to check out what was left of the old Home, Cid just dumped almost all of the ruin pieces in a cave serving as a junk yard, said he needed to use the old place as the ground for his little town, anyway, I found some of the wall-plates from my favorite mess hall, so I brought them here and made some exactly like them."

Rikku ran around and looked at the hall, searching for something that was wrong, but she couldn't find anything. Gippal sniggered and went over to the bar and took an apple.

"Hey!" He yelled to Rikku. "Get something to eat before you wet your pants from excitement!"

Rikku immediately ran over to the bar and grabbed the spiciest piece of food she could find.

All Al-bhed like spicy food, but Rikku had a special thing for spicy food; she didn't like it, she loved it. The bad thing about that is the fact that she thinks everybody likes it as much as her, you should always remember NOT to ask her to make dinner, according to Rikku; the spicier the better!

There was nobody else in the mess hall but Rikku Gippal, and the chef; Wally. Everybody had already had dinner for the day, but Gippal held the kitchen open twenty-four seven, since a lot of his workers get so caught up in their work that they forget about lunch. Wally wasn't there all the time though, but he loved his job and spent as much time in the kitchen as he could.

Wally was a broad man with long grey hair braided up in thick dread-locks, and he had a grey beard to match it. He wore grey pants and a white shirt. He had been abandoned by his parents in the Sanubia desert, but a group of Al-bheds had found him and took him back to Home and adopted him.

They just sat there for hours, just talking, eating, and drinking a little.

"I think I better tuck in for the night…" Wally said after four beers, two moonflow apples, and a piece of roasted drake, but since Rikku had unfortunately convinced him to let her show him her cooking he got a bit choked by the extremely spicy drake-meat, and Gippal nearly fell of his chair while laughing from seeing Rikkus expression on her face as she tried to help Wally by forcing some water down his throat.

"You know," Gippal said with a smirk as Wally left to go to his room. "You're dangerous in the kitchen!"

"Oh crid ib! (Shut up!)" Rikku said angrily.

Gippal just laughed and took a sip of his drink. (The kitchen in the mess hall also had an impressive stock of alcoholic drinks)

"Well, I guess I better go to bed too." He said.

"What? But it's so early!" Rikku protested.

Gippal stared at her.

"Rikku, it's 3.00am in the morning!" He said.

"Really?" Rikku said disbelievingly and looked at the clock hanging at the wall. "But I'm all slept out; I've been asleep all day!" She whined.

"Well, that's your problem." Gippal said and stood.

"It's YOUR problem too if you want your worker fit for duty!" Rikku said.

Gippal sighed and went behind the counter and started blending some non-alcoholic drinks.

"What are you doing?" Rikku asked curiously.

"Something I learned in the Crimson squad." Gippal said and poured all of it up in a glass and handed it to Rikku.

"Don't drink any of it before you've reached your bed." Gippal said and started walking towards the lift outside the hall.

"Why not?" Rikku sniffed at the drink and ran after Gippal.

"You'll see." Gippal said and yawned as the lift moved upwards.

Unlike Rikku, Gippal was really tired. He had been studying the fiends' spine all day since he returned from the Mushroom rock beach carrying Rikku on his back.

"Sleep tight…" Gippal said lazily as he left Rikku and went to his room.

"I hope so." Rikku said and looked at the drink in her hands.

Gippal laughed a little, and then he left.

Rikku walked back to her room, and as she opened the door and walked inside she noticed that there were five red lights on the ring around the commsphere on her desk, which meant she had received five messages.

"I wonder…" Rikku thought suspiciously and walked over to the commsphere to check the messages. But before she could touch it, the sphere started glowing and giving of a light beeping sound, which meant someone was trying to contact her. Rikku tapped the sphere lightly and she immediately saw the worried face of her cousin.

"Are you okay?" Yuna asked hysterically. "I've been trying to contact you all day, AND night!"

"Woops, ehehe, sorry Yunie." Rikku said and scratched her head. "I've been…busy, that's all…"

Yuna looked at her suspiciously and said "Reeeally?"

"It's true!" Rikku yelled.

"Then how come the guy at the temples commsphere central said everybody was having the day off?"

"Shit!" Rikku thought. She couldn't tell Yuna that she passed out, she'd go ballistic at Gippal.

"Well…I was bored so…Gippal put me right in work!" Rikku said and tried to smile.

Yuna was still unconvinced. Rikku sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Look, we went down to the beach to clear out some fiends since they have been increasing for some time now, okay?" She said.

"Well, to me it looks like you just came from a party!" Yuna said and smiled an evil grin.

"Huh?" Rikku said, but then she remembered the glass in her hand. "Oh, this is just so I can fall asleep easier; I've been having a little trouble about that lately so Gippal gave me this!"

Yunas smile vanished and she suddenly looked a bit worried.

"Are you sure it's not something…dangerous?" She asked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rikku said and laughed.

"Well…" Yuna said a little uncertain. "Maybe Gippal is trying to make you…pass out, so that he can…you know…"

"Oh Yunie, get real!" Rikku laughed and took a sip of the drink, but a second after she did, she started to feel dizzy, she put the glass down on the desk next to the commsphere.

"Rikku!" Yuna shouted. "Are you Allright!?"

"Yeah," Rikku said and sat down on the bed. "I'm just…tired…"

And with that, she passed out for the second time in fourteen hours.

"Rikku!? Rikku!!" Yuna yelled hysterically.

Gippal was lying in his bed, enjoying a nights good sleep; he was dreaming about himself, a brand new machina, and a hell lot of girls. He was just about to kiss the most beautiful chick around, but then he woke up from a strange sound as from an enormous engine. The whole temple was rumbling and Gippal irritably got out of his bed muttering;

"What the hell…" He checked the time. "Who the hell can be making a sound like this at four thirty in the morning?" He put on his pants and boots and went to check it out.

As he reached the main hall however, the doors flung up and into the temple marched a very furious ex-summoner.

"Yuna, you know what time-" Gippal begun but was interrupted by Yunas fist colliding with his cheek.

"What have you done to Rikku!?" She shouted.

As soon as Rikku had passed out, Yuna had contacted Brother and Buddy and told them about it, so after picking up Yuna at Besaid the Celsius swooped through the air to Djose. Buddy was a little skeptic about what Yuna had told him but thought they better check it out, Brother had gone totally ballistic and almost refused to pick Yuna up so that he could go straight to Djose to beat the crap out of Gippal. Tidus had been listening to Yuna and Rikkus conversation on the commsphere and he tried to remind Yuna about the fact that Rikku had told her that the drink was supposed to make her sleep, but with no success.

"What?" Gippal said and looked at Yuna.

Tidus suddenly appeared at entrance.

"Sorry Gippal," He panted. "I tried to convince her to be reasonable but-"

"What's there to be reasonable about!?" Yuna shouted. "He drugged her!" She pointed an accusing finger at Gippal.

"What!?" Gippal yelled. "I haven't drugged anyone!"

"You drugged my baby sister!?" Yelled Brother who had just sprinted inside the Temple. "E's kuehk du gemm oui! (I'm going to kill you!)" He punched Gippal in the stomach and was about to kick him but he was restrained by Tidus and Buddy.

Gippal breathed hard and looked up at them, and then Yuna spoke again with the same furious tone.

"I talked to her on the commsphere and she suddenly fainted from that poisoned drink of yours!"

Gippal just looked at her, then he suddenly chuckled.

"She didn't faint!" He said. "She just fell asleep, she said she was to awake to go to bed so I gave her a drink to make her feel sleepy!"

"Where is she?" Yuna asked harshly.

Gippal pointed to the door leading to all the corridors and sleeping quarters and said,

"Just walk straight, then turn left and-"

"Show me!" Yuna interrupted.

Gippal let his hand drop and looked at her, and then he walked through the door and showed them the way. He stopped outside Rikkus room.

"She should be in her," He gestured towards the door. "Unless she's a sleepwalker."

Yuna pushed him out of the way and opened the door. There she was, lying on the bed, just as Yuna had seen her trough the commsphere, she was sleeping peacefully.

"Rikku?" Yuna said quietly and slightly rubbed her shoulder.

"Hmn Gippal…" Rikku said in her sleep.

Yuna looked at Gippal who quickly put his arms up in defense. Yuna looked at all the empty potion bottles at the bedside table.

"What's with all these?" Yuna asked and gestured towards the bottles.

Gippal scratched the back of his head, how was he going to get out of that one? Ah heck, might as well tell the truth.

"She…had a little quarrel with a fiend earlier today," He said. "She passed out, and I guess I freaked out and tried to get her to drink some potion, but since she was unconscious; well it didn't go to well." He grinned nervously.

Yuna nodded and looked at Rikku who was just lying on the bed with her clothes on.

Gippal bit his lip, and then he went over to her and tucked Rikku in under the covers, Yuna just looked at him.

"Come on." Gippal said and started to walk out of the room. "Let her sleep."

The others had been waiting in the corridor and as soon as Gippal closed the door Brother burst out questions to Yuna.

"Well!?" He spat. "What has he done to my sister!?"

"Nothing." Yuna admitted. "She's just the same as she was when I saw her in the commsphere."

Brother just glared at Gippal.

"Let's go!" Yuna said and started to walk.

"Just one thing!" Gippal said.

Yuna stopped in her tracks and looked at him.

"What is it you don't like about me?" Gippal continued. "I mean, what's so BAD about the thought of me and Rikku being together? I mean, I feel kinda awkward since we're NOT together."

"Two reasons!" Yuna said holding her hand up. "I don't like your attitude, and since you're a player you'll just end up hurting her feelings!"

"Again!" Brother filled in.

Gippal was quiet for a moment, he looked at Yuna, then he looked at the floor, and then he said, "Look, I don't deny that we used to be a couple, but to say that I hurt her feelings would be a little harsh since it was just as much her idea as mine to brake up."

"So you both just came to eachother thinking you should brake up?" Yuna asked sarcastically.

"Funny enough, yeah." Gippal said rubbing his forehead. "I mean kind of…since I was going for the Crimson squad and she was going with her Brothers on one of the salvage ships, we didn't have much choice, so it really wasn't my fault."

"Hah" Brother barked. "Not your fault!? Me and Keyakku saw her standing on deck crying all day after we left!"

"Look," Said Gippal. "I'm just saying…" He paused.

"What?" Yuna said putting her hands on her hips. "What exactly are you saying?"

"Forget it…" Gippal said waving the thought away. "If you excuse me, I'm gonna try to have some sleep." He walked past them, Yuna just stared at him, but then she and the others followed him back out to the main hall.

The Celsius and its crew departed, and Gippal went back to his room, but he didn't go back to sleep, what Yuna had made him say had stirred something up in his mind.

"Dammit!" He cursed walking around his circular room. "How am I going to get back to sleep with that on my mind!?"

He stopped in his tracks and sighed, and then he turned to an empty space on the wall. He walked over to it and pressed one of the rocks in the wall. Suddenly a door opened in the wall revealing a stair, Gippal walked inside and the wall closed behind him. He walked up the stairs and inside a door; he was now in one of the towers, it looked kind of like a living room. There was a good lit fire place in the end of the room, the floor was covered in a beautiful patterned carpet, the walls were covered in bookshelves and colorful patterned cloths, there were couches and arm-chairs placed here and there along with small tables, in the middle of the room by some of the sofas there was a fine big-sized table, and in the only corner of the room there was a nice but oversized bed.

Gippal walked over to a bookshelf and took out a very dusty box crammed between books and other things. He cleared of some of the dust so that he could read the writing on it;

C-squad.

Gippal started going through all the stuff inside the box; there were a lot of weird things, a moth-eaten gun holster, a couple of odd-colored rocks, a parchment with a broken sigil….

"Where is it?" Gippal muttered.

…a couple of empty gun-shells, a piece of green cloth…

"Ah, there you are!" Gippal said triumphantly and pulled up a dusty and pretty old sphere.

He looked at it and smiled slightly, but the smile quickly disappeared. He sighed and pushed the replay button.

_The sphere showed an Al-bhed girl about thirteen years old fussing around outside Home with some Machina parts._

"_Turn that thing of, it's distracting!" She said._

"_A true mechanic must learn to deal with distractions of any kind!" Sounded another girl's voice._

"_If you don't turn it of then I'm gonna tell Gippal what you did to Cid's daughter yesterday!"_

_The camera girl laughed._

"_He'd probably just laugh and ask me about my trick so he could do it himself!" She said. "Besides, he's not at Home now!"_

"_Oh really?" The other girl asked sarcastically and pointed behind the girl with the camera._

_The image twisted and showed Gippal jumping of a hover waving to the driver before he started walking towards the entrance of Home while looking down at the same parchment as the one in the box marked C-squad._

_The girl with the camera yelped, and then she and the other girl hid behind a dismantled machina. She continued to film Gippal as he strode slowly towards the entrance which was right next to the girls. Gippal was talking quietly to himself and seemed to be trying to make up his mind about something. He suddenly stopped and turned his back to the entrance and started to rub his forehead and groaning. Suddenly the image switched of to the entrance as Rikku quietly sneaked up behind Gippal and tapped his shoulder. As Gippal turned around to see who it was, Rikku jumped at him pushing him to the ground._

"_And where the hell have you been, huh!?" She yelled while pulling at his collar, shaking him. "I've been worried to death you jackass!"_

"_Whoa! Easy!" Gippal laughed and grabbed Rikku around her wrists forcing her of him._

"_So what's so important that that you'd have to leave without even telling ME?" Rikku asked. Gippal opened his mouth to say something but Rikku interrupted._

"_Don't answer that question!" She held a hand in front of Gippals face. "Anyway, there's something I need to talk to you about."_

"_Whoo-boy, this is getting stressful," Gippal said scratching his neck. "Because I've got to talk to you about something too."_

"_Should I say it first?" Rikku asked._

"_Yeah, I think that would be best." Gippal said and nodded._

"_Well," Rikku looked at the ground while kicking sand with her foot. "I'm going with Brother and Keyakku on the salvage ship, since I'm old enough now I thought I might make myself useful."_

_Gippal looked at her and nodded, maybe this won't be that painful to say, he thought._

"_I wanted to ask you to come with us!" Rikku said and smiled slightly._

_Okay, this will be painful, Gippal thought._

"_I'm sorry," He said and looked at the ground. "I can't."_

"_Wh-why not!?" Rikku asked and grabbed his hand._

"_Because," Gippal said and looked at her and sighed. "I went to the crusader enlistment at the Mi'hen north end."_

"_But," Rikku said and shook her head. "I thought they didn't accept Al-bheds as crusaders!"_

"_They don't," Gippal said. "But I didn't want to give up, when I turned up to enlist they turned me down, but a Chocobo knight named Lucil gave me this." He showed Rikku the parchment. Rikku took it and read it._

"_Tryouts for the Crimson squad!?" Rikku said in disbelief._

"_Yeah," Gippal said and scratched his neck again. "The ones who win will become leaders of crusader chapter all over Spira and-"_

"_It says here that you're most likely to sustain serious injury or even death!" Rikku interrupted._

"_Well, that's why it's only for the elites." Gippal said and tried to smile._

"_But it's the Yevonites that put this squad up Right?" Rikku said with a worried look. "What if it's a trap or something?"_

"_To capture one Al-bhed?" Gippal chuckled and said. "Not likely._

"_You might die if you go!" Rikku whined. "I won't let you go!" She hugged him around his waist and rested her head against his chest._

"_Sigh…Cid's girl…" Gippal sighed and rested his cheek at her head._

"_Sniff…I have a name…" Rikku sobbed._

_Gippal smirked. There was a moment of silence before Gippal spoke again._

"_Look, I know I'll make it, but if I by any chance won't come back, then I want you to promise you'll go find another guy, okay?"_

_Rikku shook her head and punched his chest._

"_Don't say that you jackass!" She sobbed. "You're gonna come back or I'll kick your sorry ass!"_

"_Promise me Rikku, please?" Gippal looked into her tearful eyes._

_Rikku was stunned both by the fact that he had used her real name, and for the fact that he wanted her to promise something like that._

"_Fine, I promise." Rikku said, but she crossed her fingers behind her back. "But then you gotta promise me something too!" She demanded._

"_I'm listening!" Gippal said and smiled._

"_You have to look at the stars every night when we're not together!"_

"_The stars?" Gippal looked at her with an awkward expression on his face._

"_Every night!" Rikku demanded. "Every single night!"_

_Gippal smiled and said "I promise."_

_They hugged eachother tightly._

"_Aaaw, that's so sweet!" Said one of the two hiding girls._

"_Sssch, idiot!" Hissed the girl with the camera._

_Rikku quickly turned around and faced the eavesdroppers._

"_Hey! Give me that sphere!" She yelled and ran at them._

_The girls got up and ran for the entrance, and then the screen went black._

Gippal thought back about that day. The girls with the camera had managed to hide from Rikku, but Gippal found them and bought the sphere, he didn't tell Rikku about it though.

He put down the sphere and suddenly notice something lying in the box, how could I have forgotten about that, he thought. He pulled out an iron-colored locket, the chain was rather long. Gippal eagerly opened it up, he looked at the two pictures inside the medallion, one was of a beautiful Al-bhed woman, and the other one was of himself and Rikku. Gippal smiled and sighed.

"_Where is she!?" Brother said irritably. "If she won't show up soon, then we're gonna board without her!"_

"_Relax, she said she had to pick up something first!" Keyakku said calmly._

_Brother snorted._

_They were at the coast of Bikanel Island, Rikku was supposed to go with her two brothers and their crew on a salvage expedition, Gippal had shown up to say goodbye before he left for the Crimson squad._

"_There she is!" Gippal said and pointed to a hover that came sliding over the sand._

_Rikku jumped of the hover and ran over to Gippal and her brothers._

"_Sorry I'm late!" Rikku said smiling. "You guys go ahead; I'm just gonna talk to Gippal a little before we go." She told Keyakku and Brother._

_Brother snorted and Keyakku just waved a hand over his head, but then they jumped of the pier and onto the salvage ship_

"_So," Gippal said. "What's with the new outfit?"_

"_I just thought it'd be convenient since there will be some underwater-work!" Rikku smiled and removed her goggles._

_Gippal chuckled._

"_There's something I wanna give you." Rikku said and sounded a little sad, she took out a necklace from her pocket and held it out. "My mom gave this to me, before she died, said it meant good luck."_

"_I can't take this," Gippal said and looked at the locket. "It's your-"_

"_Take it!" Rikku demanded. "Take it, so that you can give it back to me when you come back alive!" She pushed it into Gippals hands. Gippal looked at her and smiled slightly._

"_Thanks," He said. "I'll give it back to you, I promise."_

_Rikku jumped at him and they kissed passionately, they didn't brake away before Keyakku yelled._

"_Hey Rikku! Say goodbye to your boyfriend and move it!"_

_Rikku and Gippal looked at eachother._

"_Good luck." Rikku said._

"_Yeah," Gippal said and grinned. "You too, Cid's girl!"_

_Rikku punched his chest and laughed before she ran onto the salvage ship. She stood at the deck and waved at Gippal who waved back and didn't leave until he couldn't see the ship any more._

"I had no idea she had been crying," Gippal said to himself. Brother said that Rikku had been sitting on deck crying. Gippal glanced at the medallion, and then he put it inside his pocket.

Good luck he thought, it might be useful.

"I guess we never really broke up, but were not a couple anymore."

And with that he walked over to the oversized bed and collapsed onto it and fell asleep almost at once.

**(A/N)** I know! The sphere and the flashback should have been in Al-bhed, but I thought it would be a little messy to translate all of it…anyway, this was the second chapter, not to much action, but it was good, right? Please review….


	3. Narroj, Raze, and a spheremorph

**(A/N)** Man! Am I quick or what? It's barely a week since I put up the first chapter, and here I am, with a third one.....I'd like to thank all of you who's been taking your time to read an review! This chapter is kind of weird, maybe not as funny as the first two, but I promise I will have some fluffy scenes for all you Gippal-Rikku fans out there some time soon.....until then, read, review, and _try_ to enjoy!

**Disclimer: I don't own ANYTHING, well, except the main plot, but not the characters **** the places or anything that square Enix has copyright on....**

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**Gippal POV**

I had been with other girls after Rikku, but none of them were exactly a girlfriend. I don't really know what happened between us when we met again, after I left the Crimson squad I disappeared, well atleast for the Yevonites I did. That day when she and the other girls came for an interview I was shocked, but I kept a cool face and flirted with Yuna too see Rikkus reaction, and I was quite satisfied with the result; she didn't wanna show it in front of Yuna and Paine, but I could tell she was angry, but when I called her Cid's girl she went back to her old track.

Since she didn't seem to care about the fact that we weren't a couple anymore, I just let it drop. I can't believe I forgot about the locket, but then again so had she, so when I found it again, I wasn't sure if I should give it back to her, I know it belonged to her, but still….

**Normal POV**

Rikku woke up early; she stretched while still lying in bed smiling. She had been having a very nice dream; apparently Gippals drink was having some more effects than just a good night's sleep. Rikku jumped out of bed and got dressed quickly. She was even more hyper today than she used to be and she wanted to thank Gippal for making her sleep so peacefully. She ran out the room and greeted every single person she meet, and they all greeted her back since they were all happy to get back to work after a day off.

As she got to Gippals room she stopped outside smiling, she thought she might be able to have some fun if he was still asleep. She opened the door carefully, but the bed was empty.

"Now where has he gone to now?" Rikku wondered, but then she thought he must be in the mess hall for breakfast already. She skipped of to the lift and thought happily about the mess hall and the lift descended to the requested level. Rikku went through the double doors and noticed there were a lot more people here in the morning. She scanned the hall, but no Gippal. She noticed Wally at the counter scoping up food to the workers.

"Hey Wally!" Rikku yelled to him as he turned his head to her. "Have you seen Gippal?"

"No!" Wally replied. "Haven't seen him this morning!"

Rikku pouted and left the mess hall thinking.

"Maybe he's already started working?" She thought. She remembered that he had been working franticly with that fiend-spine yesterday. She took the lift to the bottom floor but instead of Gippal she found a young man wearing black leather pants and jacket of red leather to match it, he also wore a pair of black boots. Rikku could tell he was Al-bhed because he had blond hair. He was standing with his back to Rikku and seemed to be very busy with something.

"Fryd ec ed? (What is it?)" He asked, his back still facing Rikku.

"Uhm," Rikku began as she slowly moved towards him. "Do you know where Gippal is?"

The man turned around quickly. The first thing Rikku noticed about him was that his face was totally perfect; it was shaped just perfect, the nose was just perfect, and when he smiled at Rikku she noticed that every single tooth was pearl white.

"Aah, you must be Rikku!" He said and smiled even wider.

Rikku smiled shyly and said "Yes." He was really cute, she thought..

"I'm Narroj!" He said and held his hand out.

Rikku just smiled and shook his hand. "So, uhm…what are you doing?" She asked.

"Oh, I'm just analyzing this spine Gippal found in that cave." Narroj said.

"Gippal did that last night." Rikku stated.

"I know," Narroj said shrugging his shoulders turning back to his tools. "I just thought he might've missed something."

Rikku nodded, and she suddenly remembered he hadn't answered her question.

"So where's Gippal?"

"I don't know," Narroj said. "He's got this habit to disappear whenever you need him; some people say he's got this secret room somewhere."

"Secret room?" Rikku said questionably.

"You know," Narroj said and shrugged his shoulders. "Some place he goes to when he's feeling down, when he's tired, mad or whatever!"

"Okay, then I'll just go look for him!" Rikku said and walked back to the lift.

"Nice meeting you Rikku!" Narroj called after her.

"Yeah, you too!" Rikku yelled and smiled.

Rikku took the lift up to the base level and walked out into the main hall.

"Hmn, secret room…" She thought. She glanced over to the door leading into Gippals regular room and sniggered. Apart from spicy food and cheering people up, there was one thing in particular that Rikku loved, and that was to learn about peoples secrets, she didn't usually scrounge through their bedrooms though, but since this was Gippal she didn't really give a damn. She carefully looked around in the hall to make sure no one was watching her, and then she sneaked inside Gippals room.

Gippal woke up rather abruptly; it was nothing new that he hadn't gotten enough time to sleep, but last night was a little too eventful.

The clock showed 8.02, Gippal was a little surprised to find himself in the room he called

_Dra_ _Cyhldiyno_ (The Sanctuary), but then he remembered what had happened last night. He shivered as he remembered the look on Yunas face as she came rummaging inside the temple.

"She sure was pissed." Gippal thought.

He looked around the room he had spent so much time getting fit for habitation. He had found it when they first moved into the temple; it had looked like nobody had been there for over a hundred years. He never told anyone about it, instead he took all free time he could on making it good enough for him to live there. If there was anything he knew a lot about apart from machina and girls it was architecture. He had the room clear and finished after about a month or so, in it he had stored all his dearest belongings like; memories from the Crimson squad, souvenirs from his travels, things he had saved from Home, pictures, spheres, stuff like that.

"Might as well go get something to eat." Gippal thought when he heard his stomach grumble loudly.

He went down the staircase and pushed the rock on the wall to make the hidden door open.

Rikku closed the door behind her back and looked around Gippals untidy room. She noticed his clothes on the floor next to the bed, but something was missing.

"Hmn, where are his boots and pants?" She thought. Was Gippal running around working with a bare torso or what? Rikku giggled and started jumping around the room looking around at all the tools and machina parts, but weird enough she couldn't find any personal stuff.

"Dammit!" She cursed and stomped the floor. She started going through his drawers, but then she heard a weird sound behind her. She turned around and saw Gippal standing in front of a new opening in the wall, he was smirking.

"Well, well, well," He said crossing his arms. "If it isn't miss merry sunshine scrounging through my room!"

Rikku smiled sheepishly, but then she tried to peek around Gippal to see what was inside the new door behind him, but before she could get a good look at it, the walls moved together and the way was shut.

"Now," Gippal said holding a finger up and moving towards Rikku. "Why would Cid's girl be going through my stuff this early in the morning?"

Rikku just kept looking at him with that sheepish smile.

"Uhm, because she was looking for you?" She said.

"Oh, so you assumed I was hiding in the drawers?"

"Shit!" Rikku thought. "How am I supposed to wriggle myself out of this? Oh! I know! I'll use my puppy-dog eyes!" Rikku pouted and put on her best puppy-dog eyed face and said,

"I thought I might find any clues of where you'd gone to!"

"Don't give me those eyes!" Gippal warned and snatched up his shirt from the floor and pulled it on.

"Aaaaaw, come on Gippy!" Rikku pleaded. "Don't be mad at me!"

"I'm not mad." Gippal said and pulled on his shoulder-collar.

"Good!" Rikku said and skipped up in front of him. "Then you can tell me about that secret room of yours!"

"If I told you about it then it wouldn't be a secret anymore would it?" Gippal said. "And I told you STOP giving me those eyes!" He added as Rikku put on her pleading face again.

"Come on Gip, please!" Rikku whined.

"Let's go!" Gippal said and chuckled. "We got work to do!"

"Gippal!" Rikku whine and started jumping up and down. "Poopie!"

Rikku didn't ask about the room again because the next couple of days she and Gippal were working hard with putting together a bunch of machina guards. Since the League (a shorter word for the league of Spira) had placed an order on machina to guard certain areas of Spira, it meant a lot of work for the Machine faction.

Unlike Nooj and Baralai, Gippal had decided not to take a too important position in the League, sure the Machine faction was part of the League, but Gippal had so much work to cope with already. The political delegate for Djose was a woman named Erea from the faction, she was also the one in charge of the place when Gippal was of elsewhere, she and a man named Kairou. The Machine factions' main objective was to provide the League with defensive machina to protect the people from fiends, but of course, they didn't work for free.

"Gippal! Oui kad y jecedun! (Gippal! You got a visitor!)" Yelled one of the workers by the door.

"E's pico nekrd huf! (I'm busy right now!)" Gippal yelled, he and Rikku was currently working in one of the workshops. "Damm dras du lusa pylg mydan! (Tell them to come back later)"

"Yht secc ouin hanjuic pnaygtufh? E thud drehg cu!" Sounded a cold and sarcastic voice.

Gippal and Rikku both turned around to see Paine standing in the door smiling a rare smile.

"Paine!" Rikku got up and ran over to her with outstretched arms.

Paine held a hand in front of her and said "If you want a hug it'll cost you ten respect points."

"Deal!" Rikku said gleefully and threw herself at Paine.

"What's up Dr. P?" Gippal said and walked up to them.

"I'm here in business." Paine said firmly.

"Don't' worry," Gippal said holding a hand in front of him. "We'll have the rouge guards ready by the end of the week and-"

"It's not about the machina guards." Paine interrupted. "The League is going to create a salvage squad to check out certain 'unexplored' areas and ruins."

"What's that got to do with me?" Gippal asked.

"We're short on qualified people." Paine answered.

"Oh you want me to make a list on people fit for the work?" Gippal said.

"We actually came up with someone fit for the leader position," Paine continued. "We had a little trouble to decide at first, but then we figured that the Al-bhed are the most experienced salvagers in Spiras' history, and we thought that since we've known you for such a long time and know that you is actually reliable that you would be perfect for the leader position."

Silence followed these words, Gippal just stared at Paine.

"Sounds like fun!" Rikku suddenly said smiling.

"You gotta be kidding!" Gippal snapped back from his trance. "I've got enough work already!"

"We thought about that," Paine said. "And we figure it wouldn't be a problem since you got such reliable workers." Paine jerked her head towards Rikku. "And as for the payment, you get to keep anything you find of interest for the Machine faction as long as you catalogue all your findings."

Gippal started pacing around the room, thinking hard about it.

"What kind of people except me is in this 'squad'?" He asked.

"None," Paine said firmly. "You decide who to come with you on every salvage trip, take some of your workers if you want, the league can in case needed, provide with some soldiers."

"How often do I have to do these 'trips'?" Gippal asked.

"Whenever we need you," Paine said. "I doubt it will be too often, you can send a replacement if you think he's reliable."

"Ooooh, come on Gippal!" Rikku cheered. "It might be fun!"

Gippal sighed and looked from Rikku to Paine.

"We can keep anything we find?" Gippal asked.

"Yeah, unless it's something very important," Paine said. "Like a sphere with important info."

Gippal sighed again.

"Okay, I'll do it." He said.

"Good." Paine said and took out a sphere. "Here's your first assignment."

"Already?" Gippal said and took the sphere; he read the inscription on it. "The Emerald squad?"

"Yeah," Paine said. "Since you were so worked up about the Crimson squad we thought we'd give it a name like it."

"Whatever." Gippal moved past Paine and walked out in the corridor.

"Hey!" Rikku said and skipped after him. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to my room to check the mission objectives," Gippal said and turned to face her. "You stay here and finish as many machina as you can until I come back."

"Hey!" Rikku complained. "I wanna see the sphere too!"

"Too bad for you Cid's girl!" Gippal said and grinned as he left.

"Meanie…" Rikku stomped at the floor.

"So," Paine said as she strode up to Rikku. "How is it to work with Gippal?"

"Imagine yourself working with the most annoying person alive and you'll see." Rikku said and sighed.

Paine laughed and said "I worked with him in the Crimson squad for a long time, and he wasn't half as annoying as you was when we were Gullwings."

"Hey!" Rikku said angrily and walked up in front of Paine, but then she got an evil grin on her face. "So how is it to be in the same business as your boyfriend?" She asked.

"What?" Paine said in disbelief.

"Oh, come on Paine!" Rikku said and flung her arms in the air. "We both know you didn't move to Bevelle because of the view!"

"Minus fifteen respect points!" Paine said and walked away.

Rikku sighed and said "Well, it sure was worth it."

Gippal didn't come back to the workshop, so after four hours Rikku got tired of waiting; she strode of to tell Gippal she wouldn't take this bullshit about finishing the job alone. When she got to the main hall however, Gippal came out of his room with a determined expression on his face.

"Let's go!" He said as he saw Rikku.

"Go where?" Rikku asked, taken aback.

"Lake Macalania." Gippal said firmly adjusting the straps on his gloves.

"What's in Macalania?" Rikku asked suddenly curious.

"We're going to inspect the temple." Gippal said heavily.

"The temple!?" Rikku couldn't believe her ears, the temple was at the bottom of the lake, how in Spira were they supposed to get down there?

"Yup," Gippal said as he strode up the stairs to the Cloister of trials. "I should've seen this coming, figures they'd want us to check out the places where there's no such thing as machina."

"But, where are you going?" Rikku looked from Gippal to the exit before she followed him up the stairs. "The exit's over there!"

"What, you thought we'd walk there or something?" Gippal asked and grinned.

"Well, no," Rikku said. "I thought we were going by hover!"

"Hovers won't help us down the lake," Gippal stated as they stood on the lift. "Right now we'll need my masterpiece!"

The lift moved upwards.

"What's your 'masterpiece'?" Rikku asked as the lift stopped. They were now at the floor before the chamber of the faith. To the left was the stairs leading up to were the Machine faction used to keep their old experiment, and to the right was the place where all the old sphere stones used to be; only now they were all gone. Instead of the small circular space that used to be there it was a long rectangular tunnel, mechanical by the looks of it.

"You'll see." Gippal said and walked into the tunnel, Rikku followed him.

They walked through a door and the walls were now grey metallic and covered in red and purple flame paintings. There were light-pipes in the ceiling and along the floor sides.

"Wow, you sure made some remodeling of this part of the temple, huh?" Rikku said and looked around.

"Who says this is a part of the temple?" Gippal said and grinned.

"What do you mean?" Rikku asked.

Gippal just kept grinning.

They walked through several other doors before reaching a room full of control panels and a couple of people. Rikku notice a large cup-like window that looked just like the one in the Celsius, although it was bigger, much bigger.

"Welcome on board _'The Priceless'_!" Gippal said proudly.

"This is an airship!" Rikku burst excitedly.

"Yup," Gippal said. "And boy have I spent some time fixing this baby up!"

He looked around proudly before turning to everyone on the bridge. "Okay everybody, let's get to work!"

"Hey, Rikku!" Sounded a familiar voice from behind Rikku.

Rikku turned around and blushed when she saw who it was.

"Hi Narroj!" She said smiling.

"So how's it going?" Narroj said smiling. "I heard Gippal's been driving you pretty hard with all the work."

"Oh, it's nothing!" Rikku said and looked down to hide herself blushing. "I'm used to it."

They were interrupted by a clanking sound as a hatch in the hangar roof above the airship opened. The airship shook before taking of.

The Priceless was even bigger than the Celsius; it was painted in light grey and gold colors. Gippal had found her in the desert at one of his own excavations, although it was in much better shape now than it was then.

"Okay everybody listen up!" Gippal yelled as he loaded his gun. "Since the League has been kind enough to give me and the faction this position," Everybody noticed the sarcasm in his voice, "We are going to check out the temple for spheres and stuff like that." He holstered his gun. "The team going into the temple will be me, Rikku, Narroj, and Bee! The ones staying onboard the Priceless has already been pointed out and are considered as team two! Team three will clear out the lake bottom and be checking the old ruins for anything useful! Watch out for fiends, if you meet any problem too big for you to solve, withdraw immediately!"

Rikku looked out the window and saw the lake, or at least what used to be a lake; it was more like a crater now, it stretched all the way from O'akas' travel agency to where the temple used to be. They descended down into the lake, it was impossible for anyone to climb down there since the mountain walls were all a 90 degrees ankle. It was still a little water down there, but it was nothing they couldn't handle. The lake floor was covered in ruins of a small, but old machina city.

The airship landed at the lake bottom next to the temple and teams one and two jumped of to get to their positions.

"Ooooh, it's freezing!" Rikku whined when she landed her feet in the cold water.

"Come on people!" Gippal said as he led the way into the temple. "Bee, make sure you catalogue everything we see in there okay?"

"Yeas sir!" Said Bee, a nervous but professional girl, barely older than Rikku.

The lower spiral of the temple where the chamber of the faith used to be was buried under bottom sand, but the entrance laid just perfect for people who'd like to go in and have a look around.

As they walked inside they noticed the place was quite untidy. The statues were all broken and the white lights that used to brighten things up were all out, the place would have been very dark if it wasn't for the Machine factions' flashlights. Suddenly they heard a deep voice speak.

"Who dares enter my domain?" The voice seemed to be coming from above them

"The Emerald squad!" Gippal said, trying to locate the source of the voice. "From the Machine faction in Djose!"

"Who sent you?" The voice asked.

"It was a request from Nooj and Baralai of the League of Spira that we'd come here and find anything of need for the ones that still follows the teachings of Yevon!" Gippal said in a bored tone. "Now that you know who we are, maybe you could tell us who you are?"

Suddenly a man came leaping down from the ceiling; he landed on top of Narroj and pushed him to the ground with a long spear.

"To tell the truth," The man said still holding the edge of his spear pressed against Narroj's throat. "I don't really know that myself."

The man had a young face, he was probably at the age of twenty, and he had long untidy black hair and a goat-beard. He was dressed in a ripped black trench-coat, the collar went all the way up to his ears, and he wore a black rag over his forehead like a bandana. His pants were of leather and so were his boots, the boots had some weird claw-like pikes in the front, he also wore arm-guards with spikes around them; these accessories probably explained how he could be climbing around in the ceiling.

"H-Hey!" Rikku yelled and pulled her daggers. "Get off him!"

"Easy Cid's girl." Gippal said calmly.

"Actually," The black-coated man stood up and slowly walked away from Narroj, his eyes at Rikku and Gippal. "I don't even know what you're rambling about."

There was silence following this comment.

"Huh?" Gippal said.

"I don't know what Yevon is," Said the man, "Nor do I know anything about the Machine faction or the Emerald squad, or the persons you refer to as Nooj and Baralai."

"You're kidding right?" Gippal said with a smirk.

The man silently shook his head. "All I know is that my name is Raze."

Narroj got to his feet and stepped away from Raze know that his attention was directed to the others. "Gippal! Drec kio ec pyt hafc! (This guy is bad news!)" He told Gippal as he walked over to him and Rikku. "Mad'c vehecr drec yht ku pylg du dra yencreb! (Let's finish this and go back to the airship!)

"Clynat? (Scared?)" Gippal asked in his casual voice.

"Ramm hu! (Hell no!)" Narroj shouted.

"Ahuikr ymnayto! (Enough already!)" Rikku yelled. "Mad'c zict gu kad druca cbranac yht mayja! (Let's just go get those spheres and leave)

"Ev oui'na muugehk vun cbranac drah oui'na yd dra fnuhk bmyla. (If you're looking for spheres then you're at the wrong place.)" Said Raze.

The other twisted around and looked at him.

"You speak Al-bhed?" Narroj asked suspiciously.

"Apparently I speak three different languages," Raze said. "Although I only know the name and origin of two of them."

"Regular Spiran and Al-bhed?" Gippal asked.

"Yes."

"So, you're saying," Bee said and pulled out a notebook and a pen. "That there are no spheres here?"

"That is correct."

Gippal sighed.

"Okay, people, we're withdrawing to check things outside!" He said.

"Wh-what!?" Rikku asked in disbelief. "You're just gonna leave this place without checking it out yourself?"

"I trust him." Gippal said and holstered his gun and looked around pointing his flashlight to the walls. Raze noticed this and said "My apologies, I should alight your presence!" He held his hand up and balls of light that looked pretty much like pyreflies started swirling about and soon covered certain parts of the ceiling, the floor, and the walls, just enough to bring an encouraging light. Gippal was quite impressed, although he didn't show it.

"So, uhm, 'Raze'," He said. "How'd you get here?"

"I've been here ever since the temple sank down into the lake." Raze answered.

"What!?" Narroj said. "You've been here for three years?" He laughed and said. "No way, no one could have survived three whole years down here!"

"It's not impossible!" Stated Bee. "Most of the fiends down here are edible."

Narroj was about to put in an argument, but was interrupted by a peeping sound on their communicators. Gippal put his finger to the communicator in his ear and said "Gippal here, what's your status?"

"Gippal!" Screamed a terrified voice. "Y fiend ec ydylgehk dra creb! Fa lyn'd dyga uvv! (A fiend is atacking the ship! We can't take off!)"

"Fryd!? (What!?)" Gippal said. "Fryd geht uv fiend? (What kind of fiend?)"

"Fa thud ghuf! (We don't know!)" Replied the voice.

"Kad so sundyn yht saad sa uidceta dra dasbma! (Get my mortar and meet me outside the temple!)"

"Cen! (Sir!)" There was a beeping sound and Gippal turned to the others.

They looked back at him, waiting for instructions; Gippal grinned and said "Let's kick some ass!" And with that he ran through the hall but stopped next to Raze and said "Wanna join the fun?"

"Raze looked at him with a Paine-like expression on his face and said "I could use the exercise."

As they all got outside, they saw what was attacking the ship; it looked like a spheremorph, but it was much larger than the ones Rikku had encountered before, and it had tentacles wrapped around the airship, it seemed to be connected to the water. Gippals workers were running around all over the place, some of them fighting the fiend, and some of them trying to run away in panic.

"Where is he!?" Gippal said irritably and looked around. "Fuck!" Gippal saw the lower hatch of the airship was being held by the fiends' tentacles, but maybe he could get in through the air lock. He took the chance and ran down to the airship as he yelled to the others at the temple entrance.

"You guys help the others; I'm gonna go get my mortar!"

"You got it!" Rikku said with her usual enthusiasm.

They all ran down to the site where the fiend was attacking the workers.

"We have to use magic against it!" Rikku yelled at the others. "It changes its element all the time, if you don't know any spells, try to attack the core!"

Suddenly one of the tentacles rose into the air, clutching a screaming woman worker. Raze immediately leapt into the air, he spun around, his spear slicing off the tentacle, and then he and the female worker landed a few feet away from the fiend. The woman showed her gratitude by giving him a swift kiss, although he didn't seem to take notice as he immediately jumped back into the air to chop of another tentacle.

Narroj was busy trying to shoot the core with a shotgun. The bullets got through the gel but there core dodged them pretty well.

Rikku used her spinning daggers to cut through, but no matter how many times they all did this, the gel-pieces attached themselves back onto the spheremorph.

"It's no use!" Bee yelled and pulled on a pair of special-made goggles allowing her to scan her opponent. "We have to use magic; it's weak against thunder now!"

"Everybody get back!" Raze yelled as he charged up a spell. "Thundaga!" He shouted and released the spell at the fiend who directly after the hurting impact changed its element.

"Now it's weak against fire!" Bee yelled.

"Don't steal all the fun!" They heard Gippal yell. He was standing on the deck of the airship with his mortar.

"Raze!" He yelled. "On the count of three!"

Raze nodded.

"One! Two! Three!" Gippal yelled as he released a round of core bombs at the spheremorph, and at the same time Raze unleashed a firaga spell at it.

The spheremorph shivered in spasms as the gel melted and it disappeared in a floating sea of pyreflies.

Rikku was bouncing around dancing her own little victory dance as Gippal climbed down the ship to meet them all.

"Everybody okay?" He asked. There was a few groans, four of the workers who were supposed to check the ruins were injured, not life threatening but they still seemed a little shocked.

"Ymnehkrd, ajanouha pylg uh dra creb! (Alright, everyone back on the ship!)" Gippal yelled.

The workers walked over to the hatch, but it didn't open.

"Talk to me Dara!" Gippal said in the communication device.

"The lower hatch was damaged," A female voice said. "You'll have to bring them in over the deck!"

"Great," Gippal said sarcastically and turned of the communicator. "Okay, everybody this way!" He said as a rope ladder was dropped down from the deck so they could climb back up.

Surprisingly they managed to get the injured ones up first; for some reason all the water still remaining in the lake had disappeared together with the fiend. There were only a couple of workers left when Gippal said.

"Okay, as soon as everyone's back onboard we leave!" He, Rikku and Narroj had remained to make sure no more fiend were gonna show up.

"So are you gonna come with us?" Gippal asked Raze.

Raze looked at him, then he gazed up at the temple. "I don't think I have any choice." He said.

"Huh?" Gippal said, but then the ground began to tremble.

"I believe that fiend had something to do with the water that was left in the lake," Raze said and watched as icy rocks started to fall from the walls. "And the water was probably the magic that was left to protect the temple from its fate."

"Shit!" Gippal hissed and turned on the communicator. "Everybody hurry onboard! Dara start up the engine we have to leave NOW!" He turned to Rikku and Narroj who were the only ones not climbing the ladder except him and Raze. "What in the Fareplane are you two looking at? Start climbing!" He shouted. "Raze come on!" He grabbed Raze's arm and pulled him over to the ladder as Rikku and Narroj had begun to climb.

The four of them were still clinging onto the ladder when the ship took off. Rocks were swooping through the air as the mountain walls around the temple started falling together. A big one hit them and made the ship shake, and the ladder was swinging dangerously but they all managed to hold on, but Rikku was eventually thrown off by the impacts of all the rocks. She shrieked as she fell but Gippal managed to swing the ladder enough for him to grab her, although he lost his grip on the ladder with his other hand and was now hanging upside down with his legs wrapped around the ladder tightly.

When they were out of danger the ship slowed down so that they could climb up on deck. As Gippal pulled Rikku up onto the deck she looked at him, Gippal made to walk after the others into the air lock but Rikku grabbed his wrist, he turned to face her.

"Thank you." Rikku said.

Gippal just grinned his cocky grin and said "Don't mention it Cid's girl, Yuna would beat the crap out of me if she found out anything happened to you, not to mention what your old man would do!"

Rikku let go of his hand and pouted, "Meanie!"

Gippal just laughed and followed the others through the air lock. Rikku stood there for a while before she sighed heavily and ran after him.

**(A/N)** Well, there you have it; the third chapter of my first fanfic.....

I know what you think! The first line Raze ever said, I took it from the movie 'The return of the king', I kinda liked that ghost king....

I know this chapter wasn't too good, but it was more like an introduction to Raze and Narroj, but I promise I'll try to make the next chapter different.....so please review?


	4. Sweet dreams are made of this

Whoa...another chap....thumbs up for the swed!  
The chapters keep getting shorter and shorter....this is the shortest chapter I've ever put up and i PROMISE you that I will make the following chapter longer than this.....  
Well....I guess it took some time for me to get this one up, but it's all because of some personal problems, some stuff that happened at a party last weekend...and you all know how bad a party can turn out for ya, huh? AND I do have a life to live by....  
Anyways, I was sitting here, trying to figure out what to do....and then I realized; I had to put up the next chapter for my story! Well, here it is, and to all you reviewers; thank you so much for all yous kind words! Tack så mycket för era shyssta ord!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything that may be mentioned, shown or heard in published books, movies or games....

**Rikku POV**

I was really scared when I fell of the ladder, I thought I was gonna die. But then Gippal caught me, and he nearly fell off himself, but he risked his life to save me. Of course, when we were back on the deck he teased me and said it was only because Yuna and pops would kick his ass if something happened to me. But I didn't care; I'm over him, right?  
Sigh…I have to admit, I liked what we had before he left for the Crimson squad, I just don't understand why he couldn't just drop that and come with me on the salvage ship instead! But nooooo, he had to be all macho and go try to save Spira by becoming some sort of crusader!  
Not that I feel anything for him now…not much…  
But…I guess I DO feel kinda lonely, and that Narroj is kind of cute! So maybe, just maybe I don't have to be alone anymore…

**Normal POV**

The airship had gotten a few hits from the rocks, but it was pretty intact. They had to land in the Calm lands though for maintenance. Everything was quiet. Rikku, Narroj, Raze and a couple of others were sitting in one of the cabins. The Priceless had three different cabins; they were all just as big as the cabin on the Celsius, there were a couple of small rooms as well. Gippal had gone to report to the league, even though he complained about the work and the lack of salvaged machina; he always seemed to work professional. He didn't have a choice but to keep working for the League anyway, because when Paine gave him that sphere and he accepted the job, the sphere had scanned his fingerprints and the League held them as if he had signed a contract or something.

Rikku started to feel uncomfortable with the silence and decided to break it; she turned to Raze who was sitting on a couch in a corner.

"So what's your story?" She asked him.

Raze looked at her, surprised.

"What?" He said.

"You know," Rikku said and shrugged. "How'd you end up in Macalania, and what do you remember before it…you said you lost your memory, right?"

Raze looked at her, and nodded.

"I woke up near these plains," He said. "On a shore, in the far west. I walked for two days until I saw the city you refer to as Bevelle; I could see that I would not be able to go there unless I walked through the forest first; but when I got there, I noticed something was wrong. The woods were dying, I could feel it. I don't know how, but somehow I felt the reason, and walked in the direction of the frozen lake, without knowing what I would find. I followed the road that led to the temple, and as I strode inside I noticed it was empty, abandoned. I decided to spend the night there, but in the middle of my rest; I felt the ground tremble, and then there was this cracking sound, and then the temple fell through the ice and to the bottom of the lake. And that's where I've been the last three years."

"Couldn't you find a way to climb the walls with those pikes?" Rikku asked and pointed at the pikes and claws on Raze's boots and armguards.

"I didn't see the point with leaving." Raze said. "I didn't know where I came from, or where I would go, so I decided to wait out my 'amnesia', and remain there until I regained my memory."

"Did it work?" Rikku asked, although she thought she already knew the answer.

"No." Raze said.

They were quiet for a while, but then Rikku spoke.

"It was kind of usual back then, to lose your memory." She said as she thought back about Sin, and the effects the toxin had on people." But no one I know has been left without memory for three whole years."

Raze didn't say anything.

Suddenly, Gippal walked into the room.

"Okay everybody," He said. "I just got the report from the maintenance team and they said we will be able to take off in about twenty four hours!"

"Twenty four hours!?" Rikku shouted in disbelief and stood up. "What the hell are we supposed to do for twenty four hours!?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Cid's girl," Gippal said sarcastically and place a hand on his chest. "I'm sorry for not having a playroom here for you to kill time with, but we usually don't have little kids onboard." He grinned his cocky grin as Rikku stalked over to him.

"I'm NOT a little kid!" She yelled and jabbed him in his chest with her finger. "I'm eighteen, only ONE year younger than you!"

"Well, you sure don't act like it," Gippal said bent over so he came face to face with Rikku. "Cid's LITTLE girl."

Rikku punched his shoulder and just glared at him, he just grinned back at her.

Raze got to his feet and said "I'll be at the deck." And then he walked past Rikku and Gippal.

Gippal followed Raze with his eyes as he left the room, he then turned back to Rikku's furious face and said "So what are we gonna do, you think?"

"About what?" Rikku spat.

"About _him._" Gippal jerked his head towards the door. "It's dangerous for him to just go out in the world again."

Rikku sighed. "Yeah, but he has to decide for himself."

"How about giving him a job?"

Gippal turned around to see Bee standing in the doorway.

"A job?" Gippal said and chuckled as if it was a joke. "If he ever _knew_ anything about machina, he probably has forgotten it now."

"Don't be so sure," Said Bee and walked over to him. "He did remember his own name, and how to cast very strong spells."

Gippal just stared at her.

"Put him on a test, and see what he can do." Bee said and took a seat at the bar.

Gippal just snorted and said "Fine." Then he disappeared out in the hallway.

Rikku sat down next to Bee and let out all the anger she had kept bottled up for the last seconds.

"Oooooh, he can be SO arrogant!" She said and slammed her fist on the counter. "That jerk!"

Bee just laughed.

"What?" Rikku said and turned to face her.

Bee shook her head as she continued to laugh.

"It's just…" She panted a little. "You're the only girl I know except for myself, that doesn't totally melt when Gippal smile."

Rikku grunted and ordered a beer. "I can't believe girls actually fall for that player."

Bee suddenly stopped laughing, and instead she eyed Rikku with a smile.

"Oh, _now _I understand!" She said.

"What?" Rikku said taking a sip of her beer.

"You two used to be a couple!" Rikku turned her head to face her so quickly she could have gotten a whiplash.

"What!?" She yelled.

"I probably should have known already, but I didn't grow up in Home," Be continued. "Or maybe you two had some kind of secret relationship?"

Rikku opened and closed her mouth several times but she couldn't say anything. She didn't know why this statement had made her so upset, she _did_ use to have a relationship with Gippal, and a lot of people knew about it, so why did she act as if she just got caught with her hand in the cookie-jar?

"W-well…" She managed to say after turning away from Bee's grinning face. "We _did_ have a relationship, but-"

"So you're jealous?" Bee interrupted.

"What!?" Rikku yelled for the third time as she sat upright. "Jealous!? About what!?"

Bee sniggered. "About the fact that he's been with so many different women."

"Hey!" Rikku jumped off of her chair and pointed a finger at Bee. "I am NOT jealous!" And with that statement, she walked away. Bee smiled and took a sip of the beer that Rikku had left on the counter.

"I bet they made 'quite the couple'." She said and sniggered.

* * *

"You wanted to see me?" Raze said as he walked inside a small workshop.

"Yeah." Said Gippal and walked over to him, arms behind his back. "After you left, we had a little chat about you, and we thought that it might be best that you stick with us from now on."

"And why is that?" Raze asked.

"Well," Gippal said and scratched the back of his head. "Since you know practically nothing about Spira or yourself, I thought I'd offer you a job."

Raze was quiet for a while, but then he said "What kind of job?"

Gippal grinned and walked behind a table packed with machina parts.

"Do you know anything about machina?" He asked as he turned his face to Raze.

"For some reason, yes." Raze answered.

"Good." Gippal said and walked over to him again. "I'll be back in two hours, until then," He gestured towards the table with all the machina parts. "Try to make something out of this." He walked out of the room and the door closed behind him.

Raze walked over to the table, he notice the box with all the tools on the floor. He took a piece of machina and a screwdriver. He looked at the piece of machina in his hand, and then he got to work.

* * *

Rikku was furious. Jealous? Why did Bee think she was _Jealous?_ She strode along the corridors for a while, but then she decided to go up onto the deck to get some air.

As she got there, she put her arms on the railing and sighed. She looked out over the Calm lands, she could faintly see Clasko's Chocobo ranch. It was getting dark.

"Stupid Gippal…" She muttered. She probably would have been back together with him, if it wasn't for the fact that she heard he had been kind of wild with numerous girls. Sure, it was only rumors, but these kinds of rumors always tend to be true, and he had always been a player back at Home. But Gippal wasn't the only one who had betrayed someone; after the calm came and Rikku had set out to teach the people of Spira more about machina, she had been in a relationship with a guy, there hadn't been any sex or anything like that, Rikku was actually still a virgin. Even if it hadn't been serious it was still a relationship. So when she met Gippal again that day outside Djose temple she acted as if the two of them never even _had_ been a couple. A little cold, yes, but then again, Gippal had acted the same.

Rikku found herself thinking back on all the fun times the two of them had shared. Like when they stole all the beer from the kitchen, or when Rikku had been in such desperate need of a pet that she dragged Gippal along inside a cave and found a baby Malboro, but then…

"_Don't_ think about that!" Rikku told herself as she felt regret about what had happened that day.

"You okay?" A voice asked.

Rikku turned around and found herself staring into the calm face of Narroj, she hadn't heard the air lock open so she was kind of surprised.

"Gippal been teasing you again?" Narroj asked staring into Rikku's emerald eyes.

Rikku hesitated, but then she turned away and nodded, "Yeah, kind of…"

"Don't let it get to ya," Narroj said as he leaned forward over the railing to look her in the face. "He's just being a jerk." He smiled at her, and Rikku smiled back.

"Thanks Narroj." Rikku said.

Narroj just smiled and said "Well I…I have to get back to work." And then he strode of towards the air lock.

"Okay." Rikku said.

Narroj grinned as he walked back inside, then he spoke quietly to himself.

"Yep, she's mine," He said. "I just can't lose."

* * *

After two hours Gippal strode back to the workshop in which he had left Raze. It was getting late and everybody except the maintenance team was going to bed. Gippal walked inside the workshop and said, "Alright buddy, times up and-" He broke off as he saw that every single piece of machina that had been lying on the table were now apart of something moving, something spinning, something making a sound, or something with lights. Raze had used every single part and built a whole bunch of small machinas. Gippal's mouth fell open as he stared at Raze sitting in a corner with his head back as he was adjusting the last screw on what seemed to be a machina spider.

"You're three minutes late." He stated and put the spider down; it immediately started walking around the floor. Gippal quickly closed his mouth and tried to figure out what to say, in the end he choose to state the obvious.

"You're hired." He said. "Welcome to the Machine faction!"

Raze stood up, and then he just walked past Gippal and out in the corridor. Gippal stared after him as he left.

"Definitely gonna take some time to figure that guy out." He thought as he decided to walk back to his private cabin.

* * *

"What!?" Rikku yelled. "Whaddaya mean 'all the beds are take'?"

"All the beds and couches in this cabin are already occupied." The woman in the bar said. "Go check in the other cabins if they have some empty space for you to sleep at."

"But I just came from the other cabins!" Rikku whined. "They're full as well!"

"Well then there's really nothing I can do, I'm sorry."

"Poopie…" Rikku said as she walked out of the cabin.

As she strode up the corridor, trying to figure out where to sleep, she saw someone ahead of hear, someone with spiky blonde hair.

"Gippal!" She yelled and ran over to him.

Gippal turned around. "Hey, Cid's girl." He said lazily and grinned.

"My name's Rikku!" Rikku pouted. "And there are no beds left; I don't know where to sleep."

Gippal sighed, but then he smiled and said, "Don't worry; I've prepared a special private cabin for you."

"Really?" Rikku asked excitedly. "Where?"

"Right over here." He gestured over to a door not too far away from him. He walked over to it and the opened the door, Rikku followed him giggling gleefully. Funny how a person's mood can change within only a couple of hours, at first Rikku had been really pissed off with Gippal, but now she was all happy-go-get-them again.

She ran inside the room after Gippal an saw something that looked like a cozy bedroom. In the far end of the room there was an oversized double-bed with bedside-tables on both sides. At the right side there was a couch and a table, and the wall to the left was covered in a big banner with the Machine faction's sigil. Rikku looked around the room and smiled, but then something struck her mind and she became a little suspicious.

"Sleep tight princess." Gippal said and turned to leave.

"Gippal, wait." Rikku said and turned around. Gippal turned to look at her.

"What is this room?" She asked and gestured around the room.

Gippal's eyes widened and he shrugged. "A bedroom?" He said.

"That's not what I meant," Rikku said and looked at him. "How come I get to sleep in such luxury while everyone else has to cram themselves onto couches and chairs to sleep?"

Gippal didn't say anything.

"Who used to sleep here before I came?" Rikku asked and looked at him seriously. "Because I don't want to steal someone else's bed while they're sleeping on a cold floor or something!"

"Don't worry about it." Gippal said. "The owner of the room won't be getting any sleep tonight anyway."

"Whose room is this Gippal?" Rikku asked and walked up to him with a pleading look on her face. "Tell me! Please? Otherwise I'm gonna feel bad about taking someone else's bed!"

"Okay, okay, it's my room alright?" Gippal said and held his hands up in defense.

Rikku was stunned.

"Your room?"

"Yup, my room." Gippal said.

"But…where are you gonna sleep?" Rikku asked anxiously.

"Like I said," Gippal said. "I'm not gonna be getting any sleep tonight."

"But…you're exhausted." Rikku said as she noticed the bags under his eye.

"So are you." Gippal stated. "And since I'm more used to it, I'm letting you have my bed.

Rikku looked back at the bed. This wasn't right, a bed is a sacred place, she thought, a sanctuary, and there was no way she could get any sleep knowing that Gippal would be awake and tired. Then she came up with an idea.

"Good night." Gippal said and made a move to leave, but Rikku grabbed his arm and said "You're not going anywhere." She pulled him back inside the room and pushed him over to the bed.

"What now Cid's girl?" He said in a bored tone.

"We'll be sleeping in the same bed tonight." Rikku said firmly.

Gippal stared at her, and when he opened his mouth to say something Rikku cut him off.

"Don't be getting any ideas mister." She said. "It's just because you're exhausted and you deserve to sleep."

"This is not really a good idea princess." Gippal said and tried to get past her but she pushed him onto the bed and said "You want me to sleep Right? But since I can't sleep knowing that you will be awake all night because I'm taking up your bed!"

"What if I said I was going to go help the maintenance team, even if you didn't sleep in my bed?" Gippal said and stood up again, but Rikku pushed him back onto the bed and this time she jumped on top of him and pinned him down, he didn't resist thought.

"Nice try mister," Rikku hissed. "But you're going to sleep right here next to me, and if you do _anything_ like trying to get up, or touching me without my approval I'll kick your sorry ass, understood?"

Gippal just stared at her, but then he grinned and said "Yes your highness."

"Good," Rikku said and got off of him. "Now take of that stupid collar of yours, and the boots too." She ordered him.

Gippal sniggered, but he did as he was told.

Rikku took of her shoes and her scarf before sliding under the blanket, she patted the left side of the bed as a signal for Gippal to go to bed. Gippal sighed heavily as creped into bed and lay onto his back next to Rikku.

Rikku turned off the light and turned her back to Gippal as she cheerfully said "Goodnight Gip."

"Goodnight," Gippal said. "Cid's girl."

Rikku whacked him with a pillow.

* * *

Gippal opened his eyes; it was dark in the room. He could her Rikku breathing heavily next to him.

"Good, she's asleep." He thought. "Might as well go help the guys in the engine room and maybe we will be off earlier."

He tried to sit up, but something held him down; he looked to his side and noticed Rikku was clinging onto his arm. He sniggered and tried to make her release his arm without waking her up, but Rikku wouldn't let go. She held onto his arm as if Gippal was her precious teddy bear.

"Now what?" Gippal said quietly and silently fell back onto the bed.

Suddenly Rikku loosened her grip on him and Gippal thought he was free, but before he could move Rikku had cuddled up close to him as he was lying there on his back; she hugged him around his waist and rested her head on his chest.

"Not good!" Gippal thought.

"Hmn…Gippal…" Rikku muttered in her sleep.

"Geez, now she's having nightmares about me too." Gippal snorted.

"Why'd you leave me?" Rikku muttered, still in her sleep, Gippal turned his head swiftly towards her. "I've been watching the stars every night…" Rikku said.

Gippal just stared at her, but then he smiled and whispered "I watched them too, every single night."

Rikku smiled and cuddled up closer to him. "I'm glad to hear it."

Gippal sighed. "I have to go." He whispered in her ear, but when he tried to slink away from her she squealed "No! Don't leave me alone again!" She hugged him so tight around his waist he could hardly breathe.

"Ugh! Rikku!" Gippal managed to say from his attempts to catch his breath.

Rikku suddenly let go of him and twisted around so that her back was facing him. Gippal was breathing heavily, trying to regain his breath, both from Rikku's tight hug, and for what she had said. He just sat there, looking at her. Had she really missed him that much when he was gone? Or was it just one of her far too weird dreams? Gippal thought that the best thing he could do was to get out of the room and get back to work. He grabbed his shoulder collar and his boots, figured it would be safer to put them on outside. He sneaked incredibly quiet through the room, but when he was about to press the button on the wall to open the door, the lights went on. He hurled around and saw Rikku half sitting, half lying in bed, her hand at the light on/off button next to the bed, and her eyes glaring at Gippal.

"What do you think you're up to?" She asked and slightly raised her eyebrows.

"Uh…I uhm…" Gippal tried to make a good excuse. "I thought I'd slept enough to start working." He shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"It's two AM in the morning," Rikku stated. "We've only been asleep for three hours."

"Shit…she got me…" Gippal thought, but then he said "Look, I've had enough sleep, and if I go help the workers we might-"

"Get back to sleep right now or I'm gonna kick your ass so hard you'll be the first one on the Fareplane in need of a wheelchair!" Rikku said calmly.

Gippal just stared at her.

"Do you…remember what you said before you I got up?" Gippal said and narrowed his eye.

"What do you mean?" Rikku asked. "I talked in my sleep?"

"Never mind." Gippal said and waved his hand around. "You don't wanna know."

"Tell me," Rikku said and sat cross legged on the bed. "And I'll tell you if I wanna hear it or not."

"If you let me get back to work I'll tell you." Gippal said and grinned his cocky smile.

"No! You need to sleep." Rikku stated.

"Then I won't tell you." Gippal said as he leaned against the wall.

Rikku pouted and looked at him with her puppy-dog-eyes.

"Please?" She said quietly.

"Shit…" Gippal said and turned around.

"Hah!" Rikku thought. "He can't resist the puppy eyes! Oh I'm SO good! Hehehe!"

"Come on Gip!" She pleaded. "What is it that I don't wanna hear?"

"Let's just say it's something you would never hear the end of if someone found out." Gippal said as he turned around with an evil smile. He had just figured something out. "If I tell you about it, then I'll be able to tease you about it for weeks."

Rikku suddenly looked terrified. "Okay," She said quickly. "Never mind then!"

"So I can get to work?" Gippal asked.

"No, get back to sleep." Rikku said as she slipped under the covers again.

"Okay, then I'll just tell you and start teasing you about what you said." Gippal said

"What if I say I don't care if you tell me or not?" Rikku said and smiled coldly.

Gippal opened his mouth to say something, but he lost his words somehow. He sighed and said "Are you that desperate to get me in bed?"

"I thought I told you not to get any ideas!" Rikku said and stared at him. "Come on." She said and patted the bedside next to her.

Gippal sighed once again; he dumped his stuff on the floor and walked over to the bed.

"Good boy!" Rikku said and smiled broadly. "Now be sure to sleep longer this time!"

"Yes mother." Gippal said sarcastically.

* * *

**(A/N)** Well...atleast I managed to get a_ small_ fluff in there.....I should probably tell you...there _will_ be more fluffs....but since I've planned to make this a long story I won't make to many _obvious_ fluffs....just accidents, like the one in this chap, and maybe in a flashback or something....  
So, what do you guys think of the new characters? I know a couple of you have started to like Raze...when I made him up, I thought of him as a mixture between Auron, Vincent, and Arnold Swarzhnegger (spelling?) You won't see too much of Arnold in him now thought, but wait a couple of chapters and you'll see what I mean...  
And that Narroj...ugh, what is he plotting? I _seems_ like he's having a thing about Rikku, and what's worse; Rikku seems to have a thing about him! Oh this is soNOT good!

Please, please, please, please PLEASE review! I'm begging ye! Do I have to say it in swedish or something!? I could say it in french if that would make ya'll melt up!


	5. Accidents happen

Okay, just in time for christmas eve! I know I said I would make the chapters longer, but since Windfighter said it wasn't a problem with short chappies....well, you know! I wanna thank all reviewers, especially Windfighter, I know I complain about ye on FFU, but consider this a christmas gift....to all of you!

**Normal POV**

Gippal spent the whole next day to help the maintenance team in the engine room, Rikku sometimes stopped by to help too, but she spent most of the time in one of the cabins.

Raze had been put to work in the engine room too, according to many he was a natural with machina. Narroj was going on and on about the fact that they never had the chance to check the whole temple, he was a born treasure seeker and he loved to do research about ancient stuff, although Macalania temple had only been abandoned for three years.

Thanks to Gippal's and Raze's work in the engine room they were able to take off five hours earlier than predicted.

When they got back to Djose, Gippal immediately got back to work. Rikku was amazed by how he could actually live without sleeping atleast six hours a night.

Rikku spent the following days working on the rouge guards the League had ordered. As she was just about to take a break, a guy showed up telling her Gippal wanted to see her.

"Huf fryd tuac ra fyhd? (Now what does he want?)" Rikku said fiercely.

"E drehg ra'c kud fung vun oui! (I think he's got work for you!)" The man replied smiling slightly.

"Geez…" Rikku sighed. "Frana ec ra? (Where is he?)"

"Dra fungcrub uh dra puddus vmuun. (The workshop on the bottom floor.)"

Rikku snorted as she walked out of her own workshop, she had been doing such a good work during her time at the faction that Gippal decided she'd have her own room for work; there were quite a few faction members who had achieved that kind of praise.

"His private workshop, huh?" Rikku thought as she stood on the lift. "Must be something big." The workshop on the bottom floor was Gippal's private workshop, and he rarely let anyone in there, the only one Rikku knew had been working there except Gippal was Narroj.

As the lift stopped and Rikku walked of she saw Gippal running around checking several blueprints a time; he was clearly very stressed. Rikku had been thinking of teaching him a thing or two about how to treat her when she was going to take a break, but when she saw him she immediately felt pity for him.

"Hey, Cid's girl, 'bout time you showed up." Gippal said casually without turning around to face her. Rikku felt her anger rise up again.

"Why don't you try using my real name, huh?" She asked fiercely. "Khan said you wanted to see me."

"Yeah," Gippal said as he scanned through one of the blueprints. "There's a canyon in the Sanubia desert that needs to be investigated, normally I would have gone myself, but apart from all the work I got here, the League called and wanted me in on one of their meetings."

"What's that got to do with me?" Rikku asked, although she already knew the answer.

"I'm sending you and Raze to Bikanel instead of me." Gippal said. "You'll meet up with a couple of Nhadala's workers there, they'll take you to the place, and you'll be in charge of the mission."

"Why me?" Rikku demanded. "Why don't you send Kairou? Or Narroj? Isn't he supposed to be the top archeologist here?"

"I don't trust Narroj," Gippal said, still scanning through the blueprints. "Besides, he's got his hide full with paper work, and Kairou has to look after the faction while I'm gone."

"Narroj is a great guy," Rikku stated firmly. "I don't understand why you don't trust him."

Gippal sighed, and he finally put down the blueprints and turned to face her.

"Because, Cid's girl," Gippal said, Rikku suddenly noticed how tired he looked. "He's obsessed with old legends and ancient stuff, it's hard to notice, but after what I've seen during his time here I have a hard time trusting him"

"Aren't you being just a little unfair?" Rikku said and crossed her arms.

"No." Gippal said as he turned back to his blueprints.

Rikku sighed and looked around the room; her eyes came to rest upon a machina hanging on straps from the ceiling about three feet above the floor; it looked like a broad iron belt with four long mechanical arms attached to the back of it, each arm had what looked like a folded claw at the end of them. Between the arms on the back of the belt there was something that looked suspiciously like the yellow spine Gippal had brought back from the cave, although it was all metal without the yellow goo.

"Gippal?" Rikku said tugging at Gippal's sleeve. "What's that?"

Gippal turned around and followed Rikku's finger to see where she was pointing.

"Oh," He said and grinned as he noticed she was looking at his latest creation. "This, Cid's girl, is the future!" He walked over to the machina and gestured for it.

"The future has four arms?" Rikku frowned. Gippal laughed.

"Recognize this?" He said and pointed at the spine like part of it. Rikku nodded.

"It looks like the spine you got from that fiend." Rikku stated.

"Exactly!" Gippal said. "I've been trying to copy the technology, and I came up with this; with this we won't need heavy cranes to do our work anymore! The arms are supposedly strong enough to lift stuff that weight over two ton! This thing," He pointed at the spine thing again, "is supposed to attach to your own spine, and then you'll be able to have full control over the four arms as if they were your own." He smiled proudly.

Rikku looked at it skeptically. "Does it work?" She asked.

Gippal's smiled faded.

"It's still on beta," He said. "So it would be kinda dangerous to test it on an actual human."

Rikku smiled and just stared at him. "Do you…..ever get to sleep the days?" She suddenly asked him.

"As long as there's coffee," Gippal said. "I don't really mind working late."

Rikku rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"Why don't you just let someone else do some of your work?" She asked.

"Everybody's busy with their own stuff," Gippal said and stepped away from the machina. "Besides, most of the work I do here is too….important, for regular mortals."

Rikku rolled her eyes again. "Oh, so now you're some kind of holy mechanic?"

Gippal grinned and held his arms out. "Hey, I'm one of a kind!"

"Yeah, riiiiight!" Rikku said sarcastically.

Gippal chuckled and went back to his blueprints.

"Oh, by the way," He said and turned to Rikku again. "You'll be leaving in two hours so you better start packing.

"Hey wait a minute!" Rikku said and took a few steps closer to him. "I haven't said I would-" She was interrupted by her feet tripping on a machina lying there on the floor, she stumbled right at Gippal who was kind of surprised of what happened, and they both fell to the floor; Rikku on top of Gippal, their faces only inches away from eachother.

Silence.

"I uh…" Rikku said.

"Uhm…" Gippal mumbled.

Rikku had her hands on Gippal's chest, and Gippal had his hands on Rikkus waist.

"This is so NOT good!" Rikku thought.

"What do I do? What do I do!?" Gippal thought.

"So…uhm…" Rikku managed to press.

"Maybe we should…." Gippal started.

"Get up?" Rikku finished.

"Yeah…"

"Okay, I'll just-" Rikku tried to push herself up, but just as Gippal tried to lean against his elbows Rikku slipped and their lips connected in a very unexpected kiss. Funny enough, none of them pushed away, they just stared at eachother, lips still locked. Eventually, Gippal fell back onto his back so that their lips parted.

The two of them quickly got to their feet, Gippal scratched the back of his head, facing the floor, Rikku held her hands behind her back, also facing the ground.

"I…ahem…" Gippal tried to speak.

"I should go pack." Rikku said, forgetting the fact that she was gonna turn the job down.

"And I should get back to work." Gippal said.

Rikku walked back to the lift and Gippal turned back to his blueprints.

When the lift was heading up and Gippal was no longer visible, Rikku touched her lips with her finger and silently smiled to herself.

* * *

**Rikku POV**

What is wrong with me!? It was just an accident…so why in the Fareplane am I acting like the lucky schoolgirl who just got kissed by the school's hottest guy!? Dammit! I'm over him! Over! Wait, did I just say he was hot? Fuck!.......okay, I admit he's hot, but I just….AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!

* * *

**Normal POV**

The Priceless swooped through the air, heading for Bikanel Island. The grey metal shining in the sunlight. Rikku was restless, after what happened earlier that day she had a hard time concentrating.

"Just act casual!" She told herself as she paced around the airship. "Act as if nothing happened!" Suddenly she crouched down clutching her head tightly. "Ooooh I'll never be able to look him in the eye again!"

She figured what she needed right now was a large bowl of chocolate ice cream, but since they didn't have anything like that on this faith forsaken airship, she decided to get some fresh air instead. She strode of upwards to the airlock, still rummaging about Gippal inside of her head.

As the airlock opened she moved straight to her favorite spot in the far end of the deck. She leaned against the railing and sighed heavily.

"Dammit…" She cursed silently and lowered her head.

"Something's troubling you." A deep voice said from next to Rikku.

Rikku quickly hurled around and saw Raze standing there, gazing out into the distance.

"Hey!" Rikku panted. "Where'd you come from?"

"I'm sorry if I scared you." Raze said, still not looking at her. "I was standing in the corner next to the airlock as you walked out, but you seemed too preoccupied to notice."

"Rikku turned her head away, ashamed. "Sorry…" She said sheepishly.

"So what's troubling you?" Raze asked.

"Huh?" Rikku turned to him again.

"It's easy to see something's bothering you." Raze stated.

Rikku blushed slightly. "Nothing's bothering me…"

"It's about…Gippal and Narroj, is it not?" Raze said, still staring of into the distance.

Rikku quickly turned to look at him. "What do you mean?" Had she been that obvious? "Whaddaya mean 'Gippal and Narroj'?"

"To me it looks like your mind is twisted," Raze said. "At first it seemed as if you had made up your mind for one of them, but apparently something happened recently that made you slightly change your mind about the other."

Rikku just stared at him, mouth wide open.

"Dammit!" Rikku stomped her foot. "How the hell do you know stuff like this!?"

"Your face expression tells a long story," Raze said simply. "And due to the way you look at them and talk to them from time to time." He was silent for a moment. "I understand you and Gippal used to be a couple."

"How'd you know that?" Rikku said quickly.

"The way the two of you talk to eachother." Raze answered. "You tease eachother, and sometimes you even act like you hate him, all just to make people think there never was anything between you."

"Hey, I don't _act_ like I hate him!" Rikku stated. "He really makes me mad sometimes."

Silence.

"So what happened today?" Raze suddenly asked.

"What?" Rikku said, afraid of what the answer might be.

"Like I said," Raze stated. "Something apparently happened recently to change your opinion about Gippal, and earlier today I saw you coming up from the lift to his workshop, red as a tomato."

"I wasn't red!" Rikku said and blushed.

"I believe you can ask anyone who was present when you ran off towards your room, trying to hide your face." Raze stated.

"I did NOT!" Rikku protested.

"Say whatever you want." Raze said as he turned to leave. "I guess you prefer to deal with your own problems." He stopped for a second. "People say you two 'made quite the couple.'"

Rikku leaned against the railing and snorted. She sighed heavily. "It was just an accident; I'll just act as if nothing's wrong." She chuckled. "Quite the couple?" She snorted again. "Yeah right."

* * *

Gippal was sitting with his feet on the table, barely listening to Baralai's ramblings about the increasing number of fiends being reported throughout Spira. He was bored, and in deep thoughts.

"Rikku's lips, they were so soft…." He thought, but then he snapped and shook the thought out of his head. "Dammit!" He cursed inside of his head. "Don't go getting those thoughts about Cid's girl now!"

"Gippal, are you listening?" Came Baralai's voice.

"Huh?" Gippal snapped out of his thoughts, everybody was looking at him.

"I was saying," Baralai said. "That the Machine faction will have to put a little more effort in building defensive machines, and I asked you to state a report on your progress in development of rouge guards."

"Oh!" Gippal straightened, feeling slightly embarrassed. "Well, we had a little delay on the rouge guards but we expect them to be finished in about two days time," He took a deep breath and spoke very quickly. "And as for the extra effort you're asking for; we can't work faster than this because of the lack of reliable and competent personal, we're already pushing ourselves to the limit, and thanks to that new squad you guys put me in, we have a lot of extra work from time to time."

Everybody was still staring at him.

"What?" He said.

The meeting was held at Nooj's place; the old Youth league HQ. Most of the ones present were delegates from the regions throughout Spira. Delegates like Tromell; the leader of the Guado. A female Ronso named Lupa. The delegate from Besaid was an old man who used to be a monk at the Besaid temple, the townspeople had nearly _begged_ Yuna to be the delegate but she said that she simply would not deal with any kind of politics, so they elected the monk named Gind instead. The delegate from Killika was a young but professional woman clad in green, her name was Fay. Rin was there, to represent his agency company, and believe it or not but Wantz, O'aka's younger brother was there too, he represented the O'aka business in Macalania. The delegate from the calm lands was none other than the former owner of the Open air company, Yig, but since the two companies in the calm lands now were only one big company you couldn't call him the owner anymore. The delegate from Luca was a former Blitzball player named Hassé. There was an Al-bhed from the Thunder plains named Hatchi; he was in charge of keeping the lightning rod towers in good shape. There was a Hypello from the Moonflow named (believe it or not, he has a name) Looner. Baralai and Paine represented Bevelle, Nooj was there and of course, LeBlanc was clinging onto him. When the Guado came back to Guadosalam LeBlanc allowed the Guado to have their beloved manor back, shortly after that the syndicate became a part of the League, and LeBlanc moved over to Nooj. Ormi and Logos were of course there too. Apart from Gippal, there was one other person coming from Djose; namely Erea, the official delegate.

"How do you manage, Gippal?" Paine asked and broke the short silence which had followed Gippal's quick words.

"Whaddaya mean?" Gippal said and leaned back in the chair.

"How do you manage to be so tired and act so awake?" Paine asked with a smirk.

Everybody laughed at this comment, Gippal just chuckled.

"It's a gift, alright?" He said. "So how are you gonna fix the problem with the lack of protection?" He asked, turning to Baralai who was sitting next to Paine.

"We'll just have to dispatch some soldiers to each region; after all, real persons are a little more trustable than machina." Baralai said.

"Got that right." Gippal said and stretched.

"Everybody approve of the decision to dispatch soldiers to each region?" Paine asked, everybody raised their hand.

"Then it's settled," Nooj said firmly as he got to his feet. "We'll take a break, be back here in half an hour."

Everybody began to clear out; Gippal walked out to the observatory, he leaned against the railing and sighed heavily.

"You okay?" Paine asked as she walked up next to him. "You're a mess you know?"

Gippal chuckled. "I'm fine, just a little tired that's all."

"You must be working really hard then." Baralai stated as he walked up to the two of them. "It's been a while since I last heard any rumors about you waking up next to a blown haired brunette after a too wild party."

Paine smirked and Gippal snorted.

"So I take it you work really hard," Baralai said as he leaned against the railing next to Paine. "Or maybe you're becoming really good on hiding things."

"I just got an eye for machina, that's all." Gippal said and grinned.

"Speaking of which," Paine said. "How'd you lost your eye anyway?"

Gippal's grin vanished.

"Just a little unlucky dust with a fiend." He said simply as he looked at his feet.

"Care to tell us what happened?" Baralai asked as he leaned over so he could see Gippal's face.

Gippal just stared at his feet as he remembered himself pushing a thirteen year old girl out of the way, the last thing he saw with his right eye was a cascade of green liquid being shot straight into it.

"I just got in the way of a sulky Malboro." Gippal said.

"You did it to save your perky Al-bhed princess, didn't you?" Came a female voice.

Gippal turned around and saw LeBlanc walking over to them.

"What happened to your Noojie?" Gippal asked her, trying to change the subject.

"He's of chatting with that Tromell." LeBlanc said, clearly irritated, but she quickly changed back to her interrogating self. "So, am I right? Did you loose that eye of yours to save your perky princess?"

"Perky princess?" Paine said and frowned, although she knew who LeBlanc was talking about.

"Who?" Said Baralai.

"That Gullwing girl," Said LeBlanc with a smile. "Rikku."

"Who, Cid's girl?" Gippal said and pretended to snort.

"Aaaah, of course." Said Baralai as it dawned to him.

"What do you mean 'of course'?" Gippal said and straightened up.

"There are a lot of rumors going around about you two lately." Stated LeBlanc. "Seems you two have been spending quite some time together."

"Well, since she's working at the faction it's kinda hard to avoid being around her!" Gippal said.

"I believe that the reason there haven't been any rumors about you and another one night stand is that you've been too busy cuddling around with your very special princess." LeBlanc said and smiled and evil smirk.

"What!?" Gippal said in disbelief. "With Cid's girl? Don't' be thick! Cid would kill me!"

"Which is a good reason to why you're keeping it a secret." Paine stated and smiled.

"Come on!" Gippal held his arms out as he backed away from them. "Would I keep something a secret from you guys?"

"Yes." The three of them said at once.

"Okay, okay trick question!" Gippal held his finger up in defense. "Would I keep the fact that I have a girl secret?"

"Only if it's life threatening." Paine said. "And since we _are_ talking about Cid's daughter here…"

Whatever…." Gippal said as he waved the statement away, he reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. He pulled out the package, but something fell out of his pocket; Gippal looked down to see Rikku's locket on the ground. He quickly picked it up and shoved it back into his pocket, he lit the cigarette and looked at the others; they were staring at him, Baralai and Paine both had smirks on their faces.

"What?" Gippal snapped.

"Is that the same necklace you used to play with every time you thought no one was watching?" Baralai asked.

"Huh?"

"In the Crimson squad," Paine said. "You always used too sit outside the tent to watch the stars while playing around with that thing."

Gippal was thunderstruck.

"How the hell do you know about that?" He spoke quietly, slight anger in his voice.

Paine dropped her smirk when she saw the look on his face. "I uhm….woke up one night," She said. "I noticed you weren't in the tent, so I took a peek outside; you were lying on your back, staring at that locket while humming some kind of song."

Gippal turned his gaze to Baralai and said. "Baralai?"

"She woke me up," Baralai said. "She said you seemed to be kind of sentimental."

"It was about a week after the Crimson squad training started." Paine said.

Gippal chuckled and took another blow on the cigarette.

"So you guys…kind of…watched me, other nights after that?" He said.

Paine and Baralai looked at eachother, then at Gippal, and nodded. "We kind of thought it was a nice song…" Paine said and shrugged.

Gippal chuckled and kept smoking his cigarette. Nobody said anything for a couple of minutes, not even LeBlanc, but then Paine broke the silence.

"So who's the woman on the picture?" She asked.

Gippal quickly looked up at her; Paine looked at her feet slightly ashamed and said "One night you fell asleep out there; I saw the medallion in your hand and I got curious."

Gippal looked down and nodded.

"So…" Paine repeated. "Who is she?"

Gippal sighed, why couldn't she just drop it?

"Her name was Keyda," He said. "She was Rikku's mother; she died…when Rikku was six."

Everyone was silent, then Paine said "Then I guess the two others are you and Rikku?"

Gippal looked at her; then he smiled and nodded.

"Ahaa!" LeBlanc said triumphantly. "So there _was_ something between you two!"

"Not that there is anymore!" Gippal said and dropped his cigarette and put it out with his boot before he strode back inside, leaving the others there, smirking.

LeBlanc sighed. "They must've made 'quite the couple'…"

(A/N) I know what ye're thinking! That invention of Gippal's sounds a lot like the mechanic arms used by Dock Ock in the Spiderman 2 movie, well, that's where I got the idea, so just imagine that thing when I start writing more of this thing!

I managed to get another discrete fluff! Yay!

And yes, I know, there's a lot of talk about Rikku and Gippal making 'quite the couple', I thought it would be something funny....since Gippal says so in the game!

Well, please review....please? There aren't a lot of people reviewing actually! So please! take yer time....you don't have ta be a member on the site, so just....review!

I'll update soon, merry christmas!


	6. More memories, stars, a new friend, and ...

**(A/N)** Well, well, well...look who's finally decided to update!  
Flametongue: Took you long enough...  
-who are you?  
Flametongue: Duh, I'm Flametongue...  
-But...that's me!  
Flametongue: No, it's your alter ego....which is me...  
-oooh...  
Flametongue: Yeah, anyway, back to the subject; YOU'RE LATE!!!  
-GAAAAAH!! I know, I knoooow!  
Flametongue: If you'd stop spending so much time at parties and getting beat up by nazis and immigrants it probably would have been different!  
-But..They would have ruined the whole party if I hadn't stepped in!  
Flametongue: Whatever...  
-Besides, I got school too...and it's driving me mad!  
Flametongue: And that chick who ditched you at the party, hmm, what was her name?  
-She didn't ditch me! There was nothing between us to begin with!  
"Flametongue: What about all those times when her tongue was halfway down your throat?  
-Man, she is making out with everybody! No big deal!  
Flametongue: Whatever you say, anyway, here's a **disclaimer: **I don't own a thing.....

**Normal POV**

"Okay!" Rikku yelled from her position in the one person lift that had been arranged next to the canyon cliff. "Take me down!"

The canyon they were supposed to investigate was a large inferno of cliffs and rocky pillars, Rikku and her team were supposed to go down and investigate a gigantic cave entrance in the centre of a mountain wall.

It was getting dark.

Raze was already at the cliff side of the cave, since he unlike everyone else in the team could climb the walls with his armguards and boot-claws.

As they all reached the cave, they turned on their flashlight helmets, except Raze who claimed he could see perfectly well in the dark anyway. Apart from Rikku and Raze, there were five others there too, all Al-bhed, one woman and four men.

"Okay, let's get this over with!" Rikku said as she stalked inside the cave, she held some kind of gun in her hand, a gun with a big barrel. She fired a shot up in the air, the shot exploded and glowing shards covered the cave ceiling, giving them light good enough for them to see.

"Famm, femm oui muug yd dryd… (Well, will you look at that…)" One of the Al-bhed men said. In the centre of the cave stood some kind of rusty machina; it was covered in dirt and spider web.

"Come on!" Rikku said and smiled as she ran up to it. She examined it; it was a very small airship, like a pod, nothing like any machina she had ever seen before. It seemed to have been built in mostly one piece, the bottom was flat and the hatch to the cockpit was made of something that looked like glass, but it couldn't be glass, the airship looked older than any machina the team members had ever seen before, glass would wither away and become sand after a couple of centuries.

Rikku brushed some dirt off of it and found some kind of inscriptions.

"Some kind of weird language," She said and frowned. "I can't make it out."

Raze looked at it from behind Rikku.

"Sand….vatten….jord…" He said. "Sand, water, earth."

Rikku stared at Raze. "You can read it?"

"Yes…" Raze said. "I don't know why, but somehow, this machina seems very familiar to me…"

Rikku turned back to the machina and examined it, and then she turned to her workers.

"You guys check if there's anything else in this cave." She ordered them.

"Right away ma'am!"

Rikku's fingers leapt across the machina airship; it seemed to be just a cockpit, her hand stopped at a symbol in front of the glass-like window.

"What's this?" She asked and turned to Raze.

Raze examined it, his crimson-colored eyes scanning the hove.

"It means 'enter'." He said.

"Oh," Rikku shrugged and lightly tapped the symbol. There was a hissing sound coming from the machina as the cockpit slid open, revealing some (in Rikku's opinion) very interesting buttons and gears.

"Cool!" Rikku burst excitedly and attempted to jump right into the cockpit but Raze stopped her.

"It might be dangerous." He stated.

Rikku rolled her eyes and said "Don't worry; I know how to deal with machina!" And with that, she jumped inside the small pod. Rikku's fingers leapt along all the weird buttons and gears inside the cockpit; however she hadn't seen any of all the strange gadgets in any other machina before. Rikku was just going to say 'see? Told ya there was nothing to worry about' when the cockpit closed, with her still in it.

"Uh-oh not good!" Rikku said as the airship suddenly shook before hovering slightly from the ground, and then, without warning, it took off out into the evening sky.

* * *

Gippal was walking along the Djose highroad, the meeting had ended after several hours of arguing, some screaming, and (in Gippal's case) snoring. He hardly even looked at the road ahead of him; his gaze was plastered onto the metallic locket in his hand. His fingers ran across the picture of Rikku's mother; he remembered the day when she had died, he was seven, and he felt kind of sad. Keyda had been taking care of him from time to time, even though he lived in the orphan quarters. She used to come down there and play with the children there, bring them candy and machina toys. Sometimes she brought Rikku along; that was about the time when he and Rikku became friends. Although they always used to tease eachother for fun, Keyda immediately took a special liking to Gippal for playing with her daughter. One day, Gippal had found Rikku sitting on the floor in a deserted corridor, hugging her knees while…..crying. 

_Rikku just sat there, sobbing silently, probably not aware of the boy standing at the end of the corridor watching her. Gippal slowly walked over to her, not knowing what to do, he had never been in a situation like this, especially not with Rikku, she always used to be the kind of girl that never cried; Gippal thought that somebody must have been really mean to her, because making Rikku cry was really a hard thing to accomplish. Rikku suddenly looked up, when Gippal was only a few feet away from her._

"_Rikku…what's wrong?" He asked._

_Rikku quickly stood up and threw herself at Gippal and hugged him tightly. Gippal was totally taken aback, he didn't know what to do, so he just hugged her back, and let her cry against his shoulder._

"_M-mom's…dead…sniff…sob…" Rikku sobbed.._

_Gippal stiffened. "I'm…I'm so sorry Rikku…" He said as he felt a tear silently slide down his cheek._

_Rikku stepped back braking the hug, she looked at her feet, still sobbing. Gippal wanted to say something, something to make her feel better, but how could he? He felt just as bad as she did, but then without warning, Rikku took his head in her hands and quickly kissed him._

"_Th-thanks…" She said, and then she ran away, sobbing._

Gippal's thoughts were interrupted by his com device beeping at his belt. He sighed, put the locket back into his pocket and brought the com device to his mouth.

"Gippal here, what's up?" He said.

There was another beeping sound as a voice answered "Gippal, turn on your commsphere, Nhadala said it was urgent!"

"Sigh…fine…" Gippal said and searched his pockets for his commsphere.

Normally the Machine faction only uses their own com devices when speaking to eachother from a distance, but Bikanel was too far away for the range, the com devices can only reach people that's less than a couple of miles away, so when going to long distance missions every faction team is equipped with a small commsphere, and instead of showing the callers image in the actual sphere it projects a small hologram of the one holding the other sphere.

As Gippal turned his commsphere on it almost immediately began to glow blue, indicating somebody was calling. He tapped it gently and Nhadala's face appeared in a hologram right above the sphere.

"What's up Nhad?" Gippal asked.

"The team you sent to Sanubia has run into problems…" Nhadala stated.

"What happened?" Gippal asked, starting to get worried.

"Well, you could say that Rikku 'flew' into some problems." Nhadala said, and when she saw Gippal's puzzled look she continued, "They found some kind of airship pod, and apparently Rikku jumped inside to check things out, but then it took of, with her still inside."

"Dammit…" Gippal cursed quietly.

"I'll connect you to her commsphere right now." Nhadala said.

"Alright…" Gippal said.

* * *

"Oh shit!" Rikku cursed and looked at all the gadgets in the small pod. "What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do!?" 

"Rikku? Can you hear me?" Raze voice spoke from her com device.

"Yeah I'm fine," Rikku said. "But this thing seems to be running on auto-pilot."

"I thought so," Raze said. "I've figured out what the words on the pod actually indicated,"

"Oh yeah?" Rikku said. "What's that?"

"Sand, water, earth," Raze said. "It means the pod will take you through the desert, then over the sea, so I guess your trip will end when you hit land."

"What to you mean 'hit' land?" Rikku asked, a bit nervous.

"I'm not really sure if it's going to 'land' or 'crash'." Raze spoke as calmly as ever.

"HOW CAN YOU BE SO CALM ABOUT IT!?" Rikku screamed in the com device.

"Now use panicking over it…" Raze said. "Anyway, we called Nhadala and she said she'd call the Priceless."

"But…" Rikku said. "There ain't any commspheres onboard the Priceless."

"I know," Raze said. "If there were, we wouldn't have to call Nhadala, besides, you're the one who is holding on to the commsphere, we wouldn't have been able to call anyone except Nhadala anyway."

"Poopie…" Rikku said and crossed her arms and pouted.

"They will probably give you a call soon; don't worry." Raze said. "Over and out."

Rikku sighed and leaned backwards in her seat, she gazed up through the glass-like cockpit-window, it sure was a starlit night. She groaned.

"I really have to let go of this 'old habit'…" Rikku told herself as she stared at the stars. "We're not a couple anymore…"

_But you never stopped being a couple,_ Rikku argued with herself. _You were still a couple when he left for the Crimson squad._

"Okay, so we never _officially _broke up but…" Rikku sighed heavily. "He found a bunch of girlfriends and I found a boyfriend…"

_You're the only one he's ever been serious about and you KNOW it…_

"He's a player…" Rikku argued.

_You're jealous…_

"I'm NOT jealous!"

_He was the first one you ever kissed…_

"He stole my first kiss!?" She asked angrily.

_YOU kissed HIM…_

"He's still a player!"

_You miss him…_

"I…." Rikku sighed and closed her eyes. "Okay, I miss him…a little…"

Rikku's commsphere suddenly began to glow and beep. Rikku tapped it and without opening her eyes she said "Nhadala, you better get me out of this thing before-"

"Well, well, well," Gippal's voice interrupted. "Cid's girl, in trouble again?"

Rikku's eyes shot open and she stared right into the hologram of a grinning Gippal.

"Wipe that stupid grin off your pretty face and get me out of this thing!" Rikku said fiercely. "You can track me through the commsphere coordinates!"

Gippal raised and eyebrow, then he smirked. "Did you say 'pretty' face?"

Rikku tensed, then she said "No! Now get me out of here!"

Gippal shrugged. "I'm sure we could trace you quite easily," He said. "But I'm not sure I _want _to come get you…" He grinned and narrowed his eye.

"Gippal." Rikku said menacingly.

"Say it." Gippal said firmly.

"Gippal!" Rikku yelled irritably.

"Say it." Gippal said in the same calm voice.

Rikku sighed. "Please?" She muttered.

Gippal cupped his hand next to his ear and leaned forward. "I can't hear you…" He said.

Rikku pouted. "Pleeeeeaase?" She said in a bitter-sweet voice. "Pretty please? With sugar on top?" She motioned her finger as if putting a cherry on top of an ice-cream.

Gippal put his hand to his chin and looked as if he was considering his options.

"Sorry, can't help you!" He grinned and motioned as if he was about to turn of his commsphere.

"Gippaaaal!" Rikku whined.

"Okay, okay!" Gippal said and laughed. "We'll go and pick Raze and the others up, and then we'll follow you….to tell the truth, I'm pretty curious about where that thing is taking you."

"Just….pick me up!" Rikku demanded.

"Yes ma'am!" Gippal chuckled and broke the connection.

Rikku leaned back in the seat again and sighed heavily. "Jackass…" She muttered.

* * *

"Alright everybody!" Gippal yelled as he entered the dining hall in Djose temple. "Seems like Cid's girl is in trouble, I'm gonna take the Priceless and go get her, and I need some volunteers to come with me!" 

There was a lot of murmuring and whispering following this statement.

"Anybody who wants in stand up!" Gippal said, normally, he would have just ordered some of his workers to come along, but after the incident in lake Macalania he'd rather let them decide for themselves since this mission might get dangerous.

Bee and Narroj immediately stood up, quickly followed by Wally and ten others of Gippal's workers.

Gippal chuckled and turned to Wally. "Not you Wally," He said. "People still need their food y'know?"

Wally laughed. "If something happened to that little brat, then I'd never be able to teach her how to cook properly!"

Gippal laughed too. "We'll bring her back here, don't worry!"

Wally snorted and chuckled. "Fine, you bring her, and everyone else back unharmed and I'll make y'all something special!"

"Deal!" Gippal said as he pointed at Wally. "Alright everybody, let's move!"

* * *

"Gaah! Frah famm drec tysh Spira duin aht!? (When will this damn Spira tour end!?)" Rikku screamed to the airship for the fifteenth time. She had been flying over the seas for hours at end, and she was _really_ getting bored, she had already unbraided and re-braided her hair ten times. She started playing around with her choker instead. She smiled as she remembered the day when Gippal gave it to her, along with some other cute gifts. 

_A fifteen year old Rikku was sitting on a chair alone. Around her in the big room hung decorations and banners saying 'Happy birthday Rikku' in Al-bhed. The floor and the table was full of gifts like machina toys, clothes, shiny rocks and a lot of other cool presents. It was dark outside, and Gippal hadn't showed up yet, he hadn't been to Rikku's party at all. Rikku hadn't seen him for a week, she felt a tear silently slide down her cheek. Suddenly, she heard the sound of running from outside of the room, the next second, the door flung open, and in the doorway stood a panting Gippal, a large bag hung on his back._

"_Did I miss somethin'?" He asked, still panting, he had obviously done a lot of running._

_Rikku stood up. "Except for my birthday, NO!" She snapped and turned around, crossing her arms._

"_Aww, come on Cid's girl!" Gippal said and walked over to her. "Better late than never, right?" He snaked his arms around her waist and kissed her neck. "You had a fun party?"_

_Rikku swirled around and glared at him._

"_I've been sitting here, waiting, for YOU!" She snapped. "For the WHOLE day! For the whole WEEK! And then you show up at MIDNIGHT, asking if you missed something!"_

"_Just let me explain." Gippal put his hands up in defense._

"_And you didn't eve bring me a present!" Rikku yelled and turned away from him, crossed her arms, and pouted._

_Gippal chuckled, then he took out a large nicely wrapped package from his bag and said "Happy birthday Cid's girl!" He smiled, not one of those grins, but a genuine smile; this was the first thing Rikku noticed as she turned to looked at him, but then her eyes flew to the package in his hands. She smiled and tried to grab it but Gippal suddenly held it above his head, Rikku looked him in the face; yup, his trademark grin was back there again._

"_Am I forgiven?" He asked._

_Rikku grabbed his collar and quickly pulled him down to her lips. She kissed him for a long while, and Gippal who was shocked slightly lowered the box, he was disappointed when she slowly pulled away._

"_Not until you explain why you're late." She said as she jumped up and grabbed the present._

"_Hey!" Gippal laughed. "Distraction is 'cheating'!" He said as Rikku skipped back and opened the present. She gasped as she saw what was inside; a giant stuffed moomba doll, with a choker loosely hung at one arm._

"_Ohhh, it's adorable!" Rikku squealed as she hugged the moomba doll tightly. Gippal walked over to her as she turned around and smiled at him; he took the choker from the moomba's arm and tied it around Rikku's neck._

_Rikku tried to look down at it, she saw the feathers attached on it. "What kind of feathers are these?" She asked as she touched them, trying to figure out what kind of bird they came from._

"_Phoenix feathers." Gippal said and smiled at her._

_Rikku looked up wide-eyed. "Phoenix feathers!?" She piped in a high pitched voice. "Where'd you get them!?"_

"_I had to scan through the whole friggin' planet to find them, but when I did…" Gippal smiled at the memory, then he looked down, chuckling._

"_What?" Rikku asked, not trying to hide her curiosity._

_Gippal looked up and grinned a 'very' cocky grin. "Secret." He said._

"_Gippaaaaaal" Rikku whined hopping up and down._

"_There's more in there." Gippal said and pointed to the present box._

_Rikku pouted and turned back to the box, she looked inside of it and pulled out a pair of earrings that also had phoenix feathers on them. There was also one single plume feather that could outstrike the beauty of a peacock feather._

_Rikku smiled again and put on the earrings, and then she stood up with the moomba doll in one hand, and moved the plume feather under her eyes and blinked at Gippal seductively._

"_Well?" She giggled._

_Gippal chuckled and shook his head. "Whatever Cid's girl."_

"_Aww," Rikku pouted and removed the plume from her face. "Gippal doesn't think I'm pretty anymore?" She stomped and crossed her arms. "Poopie…" She looked down._

_Gippal sighed and moved closer to her._

"_You know I love you Cid's girl." He patted her head._

_Rikku who was still facing the floor grinned. "He fell for it!" She thought before she quickly tackled his chest making him stumble backwards, trying to regain his balance, but before he could do so; Rikku jumped at him making him fall to the floor, with her on top of him. She gave him a wide smile and said "Gotcha!"_

_Gippal smirked, and then he put his hand behind her head and pulled her into a kiss. At first Rikku just teasingly nibbled Gippal's lips with her teeth, but then she smiled and let him kiss her directly on the lips, she soon deepened the kiss and allowed Gippal's tongue to enter her mouth, swirling around and wrestling with her own tongue, and then…_

BANG!

Rikku's thoughts were roughly interrupted by a large thud as the airship harshly landed on the rocky ground. Although it wasn't too bad, the airship was still whole, and Rikku was unharmed.

"Owie…" She said.

The area around the airship was kind of rocky, with (to Rikku's amazement) palm trees sticking up from the mountain ground every here and there.

"Palm trees growing from rocks?" She said and furrowed her brows. "What _is_ this place?"

She glanced around again, and then she sighed.

"Well, might as well call Gippal and ask him where they are." She said and grabbed her commsphere.

It took a while before someone answered, but it wasn't Gippal who answered, it was Bee.

"Hi there stranger!" She said and smiled at Rikku. "You havin' a nice trip?"

"No, and thank happiness it's over!" Rikku said.

"Over?" Bee looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"I've landed," Rikku said. "Can't you see that on the tracking-map?"

"According to the tracking-map you're still moving." Bee said as she looked at a monitor out of vision for the commsphere. "You're moving slower than before, but you're still moving."

"Weird, you sure the map's working?" Rikku asked.

"A hundred percent!" Bee said at once. "I've programmed it myself!"

"Okay, okay!" Rikku said and put her arms up in defense. "Anyways, you guys far away?"

"Not far," Bee said and shrugged her shoulders. "I figure we'll be there in a couple of minutes or so, sit tight till then."

"Alright, see ya!" Rikku said and turned of the commsphere. She sighed deep, but then she felt the airship shake, and the cockpit suddenly flung open. Rikku blinked.

"Well," She said as she stood up and looked around. "Might as well get out of this thing." And then she climbed out of the small pod and sat down at a rock near it. She looked around again and wondered where the hell she was. She sighed and looked straight up into the sky, it seemed like dawn was about to break soon, suddenly a face came into here line of vision, a man was standing behind her looking down at Rikku.

"Well ain't _you _a sight for sore eyes!" He said and grinned.

Rikku startled and jumped up, she backed away from the man and pulled out her daggers. The man quickly held his hands up in defense and said "Wait, wait, wait! I dun wanna hurt ya!"

Rikku eyed him suspiciously. He wore blue pants, sandals, and an unbuttoned sleeveless green shirt, he also wore a pair of gauntlets in leather and small iron-plates. He was very well-built, he had brown untidy hair and some beard which indicated he had been here a long time, he had a kind face (although it looked a little frightened now) and he spoke in a strong accent, much like the O'aka brothers. Rikku lowered her daggers but kept her eyes at him.

"What's your name?" She asked.

"Wedge…" He said and put his hands down. "What's yours?"

"Rikku." Rikku replied. "So…do you live here?"

"Uhm…not really.." Wedge said and shrugged. "Me boat sank after that storm a couple weeks ago, then I got washed up here."

"Oh…so this is some kind of island?"

"Yup, and a strange one tha' is.." Wedge said. "So uh…is this yours?" He asked and motioned towards the airship pod.

"Uhm…yeah…well…it's a long story!" Rikku said and laughed.

"There any food in there?" Wedge asked. "There's hardly nothing to eat around here."

"No, sorry," Rikku said and smiled in apology. "But there's an airship on its way to come get me, I'm sure there's lots of food there!"

"Well that sounds good to me!" Wedge said.

They suddenly heard a loud noise, as if from an engine, they looked up and saw a light up in the sky.

"Speak of the devil!" Rikku exclaimed as the Priceless came into view.

"Blimey!" Wedge said in awe as he laughed a little.

The airship landed close by, and as the hatch opened Gippal, Raze, Narroj, Bee and a couple of armed workers ran out and up to Rikku and Wedge.

"You alright Cid's girl?" Gippal asked with a smirk.

"I have a name!" Rikku whined while jumping up and down.

Gippal laughed, and when he noticed Wedge he asked "Who's your friend?"

"Oh, this is Wedge!" Rikku said. "He's been stranded here for a couple of weeks now."

"Good to meet ya!" Wedge said and shook Gippal's hand.

"Rikku, we found out why the map displayed you as a moving object," Be said and looked really excited. "It seems this whole island is moving!"

"Moving?" Rikku looked confused.

"We think is some kind of machinery." Narroj said.

Wedge suddenly started to chuckle, and then he said "Ahaaaa…" as if he just realized something.

"What's so funny?" Narroj asked and frowned.

"Oh no, it's just that I finally understand something!" Wedge said and continued to chuckle.

"What?" Bee asked.

"There's a large door in a cave," Wedge said and pointed out the direction. "It looks mechanical and I haven't been able to open it."

Gippal and the others looked at eachother, Gippal looked back at two of his workers.

"You two check the area for fiends," He said, and then he turned to the six remaining workers. "And the rest of you get that pod onboard the airship!" He pointed to the pod Rikku came crashing down with.

"Could you show us this door?" Gippal said as he turned to Wedge.

"No problem mate!" Wedge said and began to walk in the direction he had pointed at earlier, Rikku, Gippal, Bee, Narroj and Raze followed closely.

The landscape of the island was mostly nothing except rocky hills and palm trees, a couple of bushes every here and there, and small caves that looked suspiciously like fiend grottos.

The group reached a cliff next to a waterfall, it wasn't too high, probably about eighty feet, and there was a thin walkway leading down behind the waterfall.

"Follow me!" Wedge said and started to walk. The others followed, except Bee who hesitated; she just stood there, unknowingly blocking the way for Raze.

"Oooh, I _hate_ heights!" She said and stomped. Suddenly, Raze grabbed her by the waist and slung her over his shoulder making her shriek in fright as he carried her down the way.

They all thought that Wedge would just lead them _through_ the waterfall, but imagine their surprise as they stood in a large opening right behind the waterfall. The cave was rectangular, and in the far end there was a large steel door reaching up all the way to the ceiling, there were a large amount of wheels and other mechanical devices, making the door look like the inside of a clock. As they walked inside and Raze let Bee down they suddenly heard shouting from outside of the cave. Gippal turned and looked at the entrance as the shouting came closer, now gunfire was also heard. Suddenly something red as fire leapt into the cave closely followed by Gippal's two scouts.

"Gippal, muug uid! (Gippal, look out!)" They yelled as the creature jumped into the air and leapt over Gippal's head and landed straight at Rikku, making her fall to the ground with it cuddled closely against her chest. Gippal reached for his gun but Wedge stopped him.

"Hold yer chocobos!" He yelled and pulled down Gippal's gun. "It's just a moomba!"

Rikku looked down at the little red thing shaking and cuddled down close to her chest. It had fire red fur on the back and white fur from its nose and down to its hind legs. The fur was spiked up over its head, the paws were really big and its eyes were black and yellow. Rikku's face suddenly lit up as she remembered the stuffed moomba toy Gippal once gave her.

"Ooooooh it's so cute!" she squealed and hugged it tightly. She turned to the two scouts who had chased it. "How could you be so mean to the poor thing?" She glared at them. "Look, he's shaking!"

The scouts looked down, slightly ashamed; being shouted at by Rikku wasn't too fun.

"Alright," Gippal said. "Get back to patrol you two!"

"Oac cen! (Yes sir!)" The two of them said in unison.

As they had disappeared from the cave Gippal turned back and found himself standing face to face with a beaming Rikku.

"Can I keep it?" She asked hopefully. "Pleeeease? Pretty, pretty please? With LOTS of sugar on top?" She leaned closer to him, the moomba still in a tight grasp, it looked just as hopeful as she did.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Gippal said and leaned backwards. "Moombas are even more troublesome than _you_!"

"Please, I'll take real good care of it, he's not gonna cause any trouble!" Rikku said as her lower lip trembled, she looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"I…well…but…" Gippal stuttered, if there was something worse than Rikku shouting, it was Rikku crying. "Oh for the love of peace, keep it!" He said and flung his arms in the air.

Rikku squealed and flung her arms around him, the moomba squeezed between them.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you sooooo much!"

"Uhm, are you guys done?" Bee said and crossed her arms.

"Yeah!" Gippal panted as he tried to wriggle out of Rikku's bone-breaking grip. "Gah! Rikku! You're cracking my back, _and_ the moomba!"

"Huh?" Rikku said and looked down at the moomba who was crammed between them. "Oh! Ehehe, sorry…" She stepped away and smiled sheepishly.

"If you're done flirting, let's get this door open." Bee smirked, ignoring the death glare Rikku gave her for the comment. "Seems it's some kind of combination lock."

"No." Raze said as he touch some part of the door. "It's something else…"

"I can't make anything of this out." Narroj said as he examined some kind inscription on a block on the wall next to the big door. Raze walked over to him and looked at the plate.

"När apokalypsens bringare har gåt over tröskeln till herravälde…" He read but was soon interrupted by a cracking sound as some of the wheels on the door started to turn, but soon they stopped. Raze looked at Gippal, who nodded and said "Go ahead." Raze started reading again.

"…skall världen störta samman…" Another turning of the wheels. "…dödens arme skall förinta allt som står i dess väg…" More turning wheels. "….och världen skall fördjupas i mörker." Raze finished as the door was loudly pulled upwards.

"Seems the emerald squad is gonna get something to get excited about, huh?" Rikku said.

Gippal grinned, then he turned to Wedge. "You wanna tag along, or do you wanna go get something to eat?"

"You kiddin'?" Wedge asked and chuckled. "I've been dying ta see what's in there ever since I got here, just give me a cigarette and I'll be fit fer fight!"

Gippal chuckled and threw a carton of cigarettes to him, Rikku's eyes widened and she kicked Gippal's leg.

"I thought I told ya to quit smoking!" She bellowed.

"Hey ow!" Gippal said and clutched his leg. "Is that the thanks I get for letting you keep that moomba!?"

Everybody laughed, except for Raze.

"Let's go." He said and walked inside of faith knows what…

* * *

(A/N) Okay about that language Raze is stuttering on and on about, it's swedish, just in case you wondered.

And YES Mistress Delavaire, I AM desperate for reviewers, I mean, last chap there were just three reviews, THREE!

I'll try to get the next chapter up sooner, but it's kinda hard, cuz I got a lot to cope with...y'know, school, work, friends, parties, girls, depression, relatives (gah!) and there's and creativity exhibition coming up called UKM, Ung Kultur Möts (Young Culture Meets)....yeeeees I'm gonna be in it, with some sculptures and drawings I made, and maybe I'm gonna be doing some singing to, if I can convince this band to be there and play.....  
anyways, in the next chapter you're gonna find out some yummy facts about Raze, hehehee....


	7. Mysteries and machina

(A/N) Guys, I'm really, really sorry it took me so long to update, and to top the day off; this chapter is the shortest I have ever written to this story, but I can tell ya that further chapters might not get too long.  
The reason to why I'm so late; well…I began on this other story, I've already written about four chapters to it, but what ticks me off, is that I've been getting A LOT of more reviews in that one compared to this one! Hmpf…anyways, if you like a story with A LOT of fluffs, then I really recommend on reading it, "Clinging to a memory", but maybe some of ya already read it….anyways, here's the long awaited update of Final Fantasy X3: A new story!

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**Rikku POV**

So there we were, walking in a massive labyrinth of wires, plates, bridges and other machina thingies. Geez…we had to place out radar-targets so we would be able to find the way out again! And the moomba clung onto me all the time, like I was his mommy….oh, and I named him Cue, because he's such a cutie! Oh, and we saw these weird symbols everywhere, like those on the airship and next to the gate, and Narroj kept bugging poor Raze to translate them; it was all some old history crap about how that place was built and stuff. At some places, it was really dark and scary….I had to stop once, cause I saw this weird thing that made me shiver, but Bee gave me a spank on the butt and said it was only a light bulb. Now, _normally _when somebody spanks my butt, I would wheel around and smack their faces, but since it was Bee….I was just sorta freaked out instead.

Anyway, we got into this huge room with a large opening leading out to the ocean, and guess what was covering the walls; eggs! Just like the one Gippal and I saw in the cave near Djose shore! Although they weren't spitting out Sallets like the last one. Gippal kept yapping about his theory of how the egg must have been washed out of here during that huge storm and then being washed up in Djose. Yup, I know; Gippal hardly gets serious about _anything_, but he was kinda serious about all this….for about two minutes….then he went into 'Gippal mode' and said "Hey Cid's girl! Maybe you should go back so these things won't jump at you and make ya pass out again, eh?"

That jerk! Grrr…hmpf, and that's exactly what I called him; a stupid bone-headed jerk.

Gah, and then Wedge came up with this stupid question, like "Uh, are ye guys married or something?"

To that question, both I and Gippal let out a clear and simple "NO!"

And he went all "Okay, okay sorry! Just thought that the two of ya looked like ye made 'quite the couple' tha's all…"

Argh! Why does everybody say that?

But before I could voice my thought about that comment; one of the eggs hatched and another one of those icky dragons came at us. Buuut…we were more this time so it didn't take long until we beat it to a pulp! And guess who got to finish it of!

…nooo, it wasn't Raze.

….nooo, it wasn't Gippal.

…it wasn't Narroj either, no.

…and it was _definitely _not Bee.

…Hah! You thought it was me, didn't ya? But, no, it wasn't me either, it was Wedge. Yup, that guy sure got a scary left swing. He killed it with his own hands, it was _so_ cool! So, uh…what happened next?...Oh yeah! We left the big room and took another route to explore the place some more.

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**Normal POV**

"What's this?" Gippal quietly asked no one in particular as they entered a really huge room. It was quadratic; there were some stairs at the entrance, leading them down about two feet. Along the walls there were metal statues that looked like hunched, faceless, grey humans. But what caught the eyes of the visitors were all the glass pipe-like tanks, every single one of them had something inside of them, water, and something that looked suspiciously like humans, although they were partly mechanic, they looked to be either dead or asleep.

"What in Fayth's name is this place?" Wedge said in a low voice.

Rikku hugged Cue closer to her chest as she entered the room.

Raze stared around the room with something like terror in his eyes.

"This place…" He said and slowly walked to the center of the room where a bigger and more advanced looking container stood, it was broken, empty, and there were some inscriptions on it.

"Messiah…" He read.

While everybody was examining the tanks and their inhabitants, Narroj crossed the room to a large door, or more like gate, that reached almost all the way up to the ceiling. He looked at the inscriptions and tried to make them out; Raze had taught him some of it when they checked the other inscriptions in the corridors.

"'The source'?" He read and frowned. He pushed one of the doors open and peeked inside; it was a large corridor, and in the end of it there was another gate-like door, and in front of it stood some kind of large machina.

"Hey guys!" He yelled at the others. "Check this out!"

The others came up to him, except Raze who was still staring at the broken tank, deep in thought.

"What's that?" Rikku asked nervously as she pointed towards the machina.

"Never seen a machina before?" Gippal smirked.

"Not something like that!" Rikku exclaimed and glared at Gippal.

"Me neither," Gippal said and shrugged. "But there's only one way to find out." And with that he stepped through the door and started to walk over to the machina, however, before he could reach it, the whole thing began to tremble and make a tinkering sound. Gippal froze in his tracks as the thing rose and folded out arms and legs, wires stuck out everywhere.

The machina stood hunched on two strong legs, it was twice as tall as an average man, the arms were long with big claws that looked like they could cleave lead. The metal was grey and dusty. The neck was long and bent down slightly so that the head was centered above the head, it had two read lamp-like eyes which stared at Gippal.

"Crap." Gippal muttered. He quickly took out his gun and aimed it at the machina as it advanced on him. He shot it five times non-stop but it kept coming at him. He dodged its claws and quickly jumped backwards.

Rikku put Cue down and quickly ran to assist Gippal. Her spinning daggers cut through wires easily but she had quite some problems getting through the metal. Suddenly, the machina grabbed her knifes with its claws. It pulled them out of her grasp in two swift movements and squeezed, turning the daggers to nothing but a pair of useless lumps.

"Rikku, get back!" Narroj yelled as he pushed past her and thrust the barrel of his shotgun in what would have been the throat of the machina and fired. The machina staggered a little and stumbled backwards as Narroj and Gippal fired at it again.

The machina suddenly went down on all fours and opened some kind of mouth and 'spitted' out a black sphere which exploded and sent Rikku, Gippal and Narroj flying across the corridor.

Suddenly Raze came rushing through the door, he leapt at the machina and pierced it with his spear, he pushed it with inhuman strength into the wall and exclaimed "WHAT IS THIS PLACE!" He stared into the machine's red eyes, as if expecting it to answer. "VEM ÄR DU?"

The machina stared at him for a second, and then, to everyone else's surprise; it talked.

"**Källans väktare.**"

"Vilken källa?" Raze yelled.

"**Jag har inte auktoritet att svara på den frågan.**"

"Raze, what's it saying?" Bee asked as she walked a little closer.

"That he's not authorized to answer my question." Raze said.

Suddenly the machina quickly stretched its arm out and scraped Raze's arm in the process. Raze stumbled backwards, clutching his arm which had a large wound in it, but it didn't bleed, it sparkled. He removed his hand and stared at his arm in horror; out of his flesh stuck slightly trashed metal and wires stained with dried out blood, a broken wire was sparkling.

"Raze.." Bee gasped. "Y-yo-your arm is a machina!"

"I do not think it's just the arm!" Raze muttered through gritted teeth as he stared at the machina who pulled the spear out of its body and threw it aside.

"You guys better get out of here!" Raze said as he cast firaga at the machina making it stumble backwards, Raze immediately started to charge another, stronger spell.

"Raze!" Bee yelled as she scanned him with her goggles and saw what kind of spell he was casting. "You can't use an ultima spell here! The whole corridor might collapse!"

"Which is why I am telling you to leave!" Raze called as a purple light erupted from his hands, the machina started to advance again. "I will bury it right here, now GO!" And with that he unleashed ultima, sending purple beams at the machina like fireworks, exploding in flashes of fire.

The walls began to tremble.

"We gotta go!" Gippal yelled.

"We can't leave Raze!" Bee shouted at him.

"That's right!" Rikku shouted.

Gippal groaned and grabbed Bee who was closest to him and flung her over his shoulder and ran. Narroj grabbed Rikku's arm and quickly dragged her to the entrance, Cue jumped up on Wedge and hung onto his back as he quickly ran out of the corridor.

As they were all back in the room with all the tanks the door to the corridor was somehow sealed shut.

"Dammit!" Gippal exclaimed and kicked the door. "That…_idiot_!"

"Uhm…Gip?" Rikku nervously tugged at his sleeve as she glanced around the room.

"What?" Gippal whirled around and glared at her, but then he realized what she saw. All the statues that were standing along the walls were moving; as they stood straight Gippal realized that they weren't statues, they were machina, skeleton-like machina, and they all stared at the intruders.

"Okay guys," Gippal spoke quietly. "Let's move to the exit, slowly, slow-" But the machinas were already advancing on them, quickly.

Gippal and Narroj quickly took out the first raid.

"Stay together!" Gippal yelled. "Take out those who get to close and run!"

They ran across the room with Wedge in the lead with Cue still on his back, he broke through the wave of machina like a bulldozer. They ran through the corridors, taking out any machina that came too close. Gippal took out his com-device and shouted into it.

"Dara! Get the airship started!" He shouted. "Tell everyone to get their asses on board NOW! We gotta go NOW!"

They could see the gate now, but something was wrong; it was going downwards, sealing itself.

"Shit!" Gippal exclaimed as he ran faster. He looked behind himself; Bee was slowing down due to the lack of stamina, it went kind of slow for Rikku and Narroj too, since Rikku was exhausted and Narroj had to drag her. Gippal looked towards the door; they wouldn't make it unless they ran faster.

"Gah!" Gippal shouted. "We're too slow!" He Turned around and grabbed Bee and quickly slung her over his shoulder (again) and dashed forward. Narroj follow suit and slung Rikku over his shoulder. Wedge picked up the pace as well. The gate was about two feet away when they all managed to roll under it and out.

Gippal and Narroj put Bee and Rikku down, and they all knew that those machina couldn't get out through the gate anymore, but something told them they shouldn't waste time; so they ran, they ran as fast as they could up the road by the waterfall, Bee even forgot about her fear of heights.

As they ran through the rocky landscapes they saw hordes of machina welling out through the fiend grottos.

Rikku saw the airship come into view; warmed up and ready to go. 'Just a little further' she thought. 'Then we're safe'.

Suddenly she fell to the ground, she looked back; a machina had crawled out of a hole in the ground and grabbed a hold of her ankle. Rikku reached for her daggers, but remembered they were still in the cave, totally trashed. The machina started pulling her to the hole.

She screamed, she screamed so loud. She was scared, really scared.

"Rikku!" Gippal screamed as he turned around and ran for the machina, however, Narroj got there first. He put the barrel of his shotgun against the machine's head and fired, it went limp, although it wouldn't release its grip.

Rikku breathed heavily as she panicked and tried to kick the thing off of her ankle. Narroj grabbed it and pried the claws off of Rikku's foot, and then he lifted her up and ran back to the airship.

The machina were closing up on the airship pretty quickly. Gippal was waiting for everyone else to get on before he took his com-device and asked "Ec ajanouha uh puynt! (Is everyone on board!)"

"Oac cen! (Yes sir!)" Came the answer.

"Good!" Gippal said and ran up the ramp. "Now take off!"

The Priceless took off; they had to shake off some of the machina that had clung onto it, but then they went on full speed back to Djose.

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(A/N) Alright, make sure to review, if I get a good number of reviews I'll update faster….it's blackmail you say? HAH! Too bad for you! 


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